DECBEASE OF GAME 7 



cated a marked decrease, and four no change. The amount of decrease 

 ranged from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent. 



A few excerpts from the letters received are given here to show 

 the general character of the reports. Mr. Henry Grey, writing of 

 San Diego and vicinity, under date of March 17, 1913, says : 



Eight and nine years ago I could go down to a iiond near my house and 

 shoot six Widgeon in twenty minutes. After shooting what I wanted, ducks 

 would come streaming in from the ocean and the water-hole would soon 

 be so filled with ducks while I stood in full view that they hardly had room 

 to flap their wings. . . . Now all is changed. ... A nearby resident declared 

 that in the season of 1911-12 there was only one duck for over 100 seen in the 

 same place four years before, and this season (1912-13) I failed to see even 

 that proportion. 



Mr. Samuel Hubbard, Jr., under date of March 12, 1913, writes us : 

 In 1876 ducks were very plentiful in all the marshes from Sausalito north 

 to Petaluma, Napa and Vallejo. In those days it was easy for a boy to kill 

 from twenty to thirty ducks in a day's shooting and very much larger bags 

 were obtained by experienced hunters. Today, in the region between Sausalito 

 and Novato, I think it is safe to say there is not one duck in the marsh now 

 where there were a hundred then. Beyond Novato there is still some shooting, 

 but it is mostly confined to baited ponds where the birds are regularly fed. 

 There are still large flocks of Canvasbaeks and Bluebills on San Pablo Bay, 

 but nothing like as many as in former years. On Oakland Creek where ducks, 

 rail, curlew, and shore birds w^ere formerly plentiful, they are seldom seen 

 today. I have killed as many as forty rail on one ti<le in Oakland Creek but 

 I doubt if there is a single one there today. 



The same observer has told us that many Wood Ducks were form- 

 erly killed along Oakland Creek. But none has been seen in this 

 vicinity for ten or fifteen years. 



Mr. C. I. Clay, under date of March 16, 1913, states that the 

 Canada Goose was not uncommon on Humboldt Bay seven to ten 

 years ago. Duck hunters frequently killed fair-sized bags from their 

 hunting boats. But he has not seen or heard of a Canada Goose being 

 killed on Humboldt Bay within the past five years. 



Mr. W. E. Unglish, under date of March 10, 1913, says that geese 

 were once abundant on the plains between Gilroy and Hollister, San 

 Benito County. Now, although the fields are still sown to grain, there 

 are not a dozen geese killed there in a year. 



Mr. T. M. Lane writes: 



Twenty years ago wild geese came to the grain fields near Reedley, Fresno 

 County, by the thousands. It would be a safe estimate to say we have seen 

 at least five or six acres of ground covered with them. They were so thick 

 they looked like scattered banks of snow with the ground showing through 

 in black streaks. We have seen them covering a strip over a half mile in 

 length. As the country was settled up and put out to fruit they gradually 

 disappeared, but for several years we would see many fioeks flying over; today 

 we scarcely ever see or hear any. 



