380 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



fluctuate much from year to year. Mr. James P. Hatch of 

 Springfield says that there is an unusual scarcity of the birds 

 about once in eight years, and that this has occurred three 

 times in his experience of thirty years. Mr. George H. Haines 

 of Sandwich says that for about twenty-five years the decrease 

 has fluctuated, but that it has been most marked in the past 

 ten years. Mr. William P. Wharton, who interviewed gunners 

 of long experience in Groton, found that their estimates of the 

 decrease of this bird varied from eighty per cent, in fifty years 

 and seventy per cent, in fifteen years to fifty per cent, or 

 sixty per cent, within six or seven years. Dr. Hugh Cabot of 

 Boston states that most of the country that he once shot over 

 contains no birds now. Mr. Henry W. Harwood of Barre 

 asserts that up to 1880 the decrease was not very marked each 

 year; but that since then it has been greater year by year. 

 He has hunted and been much in the woods since 1857. Mr. 

 William N. Prentiss of Milford says that the decrease has been 

 greatest in the past ten years. Twenty years ago he could 

 find fifty where now he sees five; but he finds the decrease less 

 where gunners are fewer. The above notes were received at 

 the close of the year 1908. Two hundred and thirty-five 

 observers reported that the Ruffed Grouse had decreased in 

 numbers within their experience, and nineteen reported a re- 

 cent increase. The diminution of this noble game bird is well 

 known and generally attested. It practically has disappeared 

 from several States and from large regions in others, but it is 

 more or less common still in New England in most of the 

 region where formerly it was abundant. According to Eaton, 

 it probably is now extirpated from Richmond, New York and 

 Kings counties, N. Y. There is not one left on Nantucket, 

 Mass., and several other neighboring islands, and it has dis- 

 appeared from some of the territory near the end of Cape Cod 

 and from a few towns and cities near Boston; elsewhere in 

 Massachusetts it still exists, although in reduced numbers. 



The most marked decrease of this bird in recent years was 

 in 1907. A sudden drop in numbers occurred then over nearly 

 all its range, from Ontario to Pennsylvania and from Maine 

 to Michigan. It was all the more marked coming, as it did, 



