428 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



1886, according to Dr. C. W. Townsend. They decreased 

 rapidly in Labrador from about 1886 to 1892. By 1894 they 

 were practically gone, although straggling parties were seen 

 for ten years afterward. The Golden Plover lasted longer, 

 and has been saved for the time being by the passage and 

 enforcement of better laws; but its turn will come, unless 

 conditions are still more improved. 



There was, of course, some shooting of these birds in South 

 America; but the South Americans had not the population or 

 the market demand that we have here. The opening of the 

 great west to settlement, and the unrestricted slaughter that 

 followed, which destroyed first the bison and other large ani- 

 mals, then the Wild Turkey and the smaller game birds, 

 exterminated the Curlew as it did the Passenger Pigeon and 

 the Carolina Paroquet. The Curlew was one of the first to 

 go, because it was easy to kill and brought a high price, and 

 because it had practically no protection. The season w^as 

 open while the bird was here, and closed when it was out of 

 the country. 



Prof. W. W. Cooke brings forward as a "simple explana- 

 tion" of the probable cause of the extinction of the Eskimo 

 Curlew the fact that its former winter home in Argentina and 

 its spring feeding grounds in Nebraska and South Dakota 

 have been settled and cultivated; but he does not explain why 

 this has not exterminated the Golden Plover, which had to 

 meet the same conditions in the same regions. The mere 

 settlement and cultivation of the feeding grounds would not 

 have exterminated the birds. It provided more food for them, 

 as both species were fond of insects and earthworms, which 

 are increased by cultivation, and both are known to have 

 gleaned worms and insects on ploughed land and cultivated 

 fields. Settlement and cultivation then would have tended to 

 increase their numbers, as it provided them with a greater food 

 supply. We must assume that Professor Cooke means to 

 assign the destruction of the species to the shooting, market 

 hunting and other adverse influences that always follow settle- 

 ment. Thousands of people can testify that these were the 

 destructive causes in the western States. 



