BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 187 



bers increased in Pamlico Sound; but this is not the case. 

 Here, again, Brant, which were formerly among the most plen- 

 tiful water fowl have decreased noticeably in the last five years, 

 especially in the northern part of the sound. So true is it that 

 at the Pea Island Club, of which I am a member, it is now 

 hardly worth while to set out for Brant, although a few years 

 ago we regularly had excellent Brant shooting. We might 

 explain the decrease as due to some change in natural con- 

 ditions, but, within a radius of forty miles of Ocracoke Inlet, 

 probably the main wintering ground for Brant to-day, no 

 increase in numbers is noted. On the contrary, all my in- 

 quiry among sportsmen, market gunners and club superin- 

 tendents, gets but one answer, — a serious decrease." 



All the above seems to indicate that Brant, which were 

 once so numerous that they w^ere obliged to scatter along 

 the coast to find sufficient suitable feeding grounds for their 

 wants, have now been so reduced in numbers that a few 

 isolated localities give ample accommodation for all that are 

 left; and as practically all the Brant in North America visit 

 these few localities in migration, they crowd them so that 

 the impression is given there that they have not decreased in 

 number, and have even increased. This is a condition analo- 

 gous to that of the Passenger Pigeon, when in 1888 a great 

 part of the species seemed to have concentrated in a few 

 localities in Michigan. There they seemed at that time more 

 numerous than ever, yet now the species is believed to be 

 extinct. 



On the other hand, we have the testimony of many of 

 the Chatham and Monomoy Brant shooters, who follow 

 Warren Hapgood in the belief that Brant are as plentiful 

 as ever. While Hapgood did not deny that the Brant had 

 probably decreased since the settlement of the country, he 

 insisted that his experience of thirty -five years at Monomoy 

 and Chatham convinced him that the birds had not decreased 

 in his time, although he had seen a great decrease in Black 

 Ducks during those years. Mr. Orville D. Lovell quotes 

 arctic explorers and statements made to them bj^ the Eski- 

 mos as proof that Brant are as numerous as ever in the arctic 



