CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 531 



Summer gunning along populous beaches, where little 

 Peeps and Ringnecks are the principal game, is annoying and 

 even dangerous to women and children who live there or go 

 there for recreation or bathing. One lady relates that a young 

 gunner shooting at some tiny Sandpipers on the beach wounded 

 her with some of the shot. Another states that a charge of 

 shot fired at a flying bird came into the window where she and 

 her sister were sitting. Two women were rowing in a boat 

 near the shore when a charge of shot was fired into the boat. 

 Women and children have been injured and killed by these 

 youthful gunners, and occasionally one shoots himself or one 

 of his companions. The majority of the people who now 

 summer on our beaches, and who do not shoot, prefer to see 

 the little Sandpipers and Plover running unmolested on the 

 sands, and to be spared the spectacle of boys afoot or men in 

 automobiles pursuing, crippling and slaughtering such innocent 

 little birds in the name of sport. The greater part of the birds 

 which are killed in summer belong to these smaller species, 

 which should be protected by law at all times. If they were 

 protected in summer they would soon become common on 

 our beaches throughout the warmer months. If they are not 

 thus protected it requires no prophet to foresee their final 

 extinction. There are so many chances for enjoyment in 

 summer with the fishing, tennis, golf, motoring, sailing, boat- 

 ing and bathing that shooting privileges at that season are 

 unnecessary. 



Settlement and Agriculture as a Cause for the Decrease of 



Wild-fowl. 



Notwithstanding the fact that the unrestricted killing of 

 wild-fowl for the market at all seasons has been the chief cause 

 of their decrease, the breaking up of their breeding grounds 

 has assumed, in recent years, an importance almost as great. 

 Formerly the northern tier of States and a large part of the 

 Canadian northwest formed a great breeding place for wild 

 Ducks, Geese and Swans; but within the past thirty years all 

 this has changed. 



