Papers on the Destruction of Native Birds, 201 



stated. I should therefore consider it extremely doubtful if it was 

 not as abundant fifty years ago as it is now. 



Another bird mentioned as increasing is the quail, though in 

 the newspaper report published all mention of this species is 

 eliminated. Dr. Langdon quotes from "Nests and Eggs of Ohio 

 Birds" to show that under the tender mercies of the pot-hunter, 

 market shooter, tpiail trapper and other concomitants of civiliza- 

 tion, the quails are becoming more numerous, when such is notor- 

 ously not the fact. 



A partial civilization is undoubtedly favorable to the increase 

 of quails. Alternate fields and woods, with dense thickets for 

 cover, are the favorite haunts of these birds, but a high state of scien- 

 tific farming is fatal to them, as was forcibly brought to my notice. 

 About twelve years ago I hunted quails northeast of Glendale, and 

 though we found many coveys, we got but few birds, as they 

 flew into the dense thickets and briers, where they were safe at least 

 from our guns. Three years ago I went- over the same ground and 

 found the farmers had improved their methods of farming, and 

 cleaned up the briers and thickets, while the hard winters, shooters 

 and vermin had cleaned out the quails, for we failed to find any. 

 In the last twenty years the price of quails has more than 

 doubled. 



I have interviewed some of our most experienced sportsmen, 

 and they all say quails in this State are becoming very much 

 scarcer. Mr. N. A. Crawford, a farmer near New Baltimore, 

 Ohio, informs me that he had only seen one or two ijuails on his 

 farm in the last three years, whereas in former years he had several 

 large flocks on the same ground. These facts do not point to the 

 increase of quails, as Dr. Langdon endeavored to show. 



In regard to the cowbird, black-throated bunting, and the 

 other species mentioned as being absent from this locality forty 

 years ago, because they were omitted from a local list is an infer- 

 ence drawn from very slender evidence. 



I do not think anyone, would urge the destruction of their 

 food, as the cause of the rapid decrease in the numbers of the 

 pinnated grouse. Where I hunted them at Odin, III., some years 

 ago, I saw many, but they are now nearly, if not quite extinct, in 

 that locality. 



In 1872, I hunted the same bird at Kennekuk, Kan. I could 

 easily bag as many as I could carry, and saw flocks numbering 



