JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOI.OGICAL SOCIETY. 87 



The Wood Duck^ and its Danger. 



By Arthur H. Norton. 



Those readers of the Journ.\l who may be unfamiliar with this 

 bird are referred to the frontispiece of the last Journal, taken from 

 Mr. Rich's book on "The Feathered Game of the Northeast." 



For some time it has been apparent to observing students of 

 birds that the Wood Duck was decreasing to a serious extent. 



The scene so vividly described in "Uncle 'Lisha's Outing," in 

 which the bungling hunters, from the fox-trails of the mountains, 

 approached the gaudy flocks, engaged in their mid-day toilets, and 

 tumbled them mercilessly from the logs, is a most graphic treatise 

 upon their destruction. Less picturesque is the startling statement, 

 made in Dawson's "Birds of Ohio,"- that formerly "Wood Ducks 

 were killed by wagon loads every spring.^' 



Confiding, gregarious, breeding in the domain of that ambitious 

 hunter and barbarian, the country boy, dozens of fearless young 

 birds were potted in late summer. Those that escaped death during 

 the fall and winter returned mated in the spring to breed, so ardent 

 in these that the devoted pairs followed closely the receding ice 

 line; skirting the very borders of streams and small ponds for arrow- 

 head^ bulbs and other food, still so fearless that they were an easy prey 

 in the days of spring shooting, that most destructive method of game 

 extermination. 



In addition to this extensive killing, like all of its family, this 

 Duck has been forced out of its strongholds by the progress of 

 deforestation and stream destruction. Numbers that once were 

 secure in the fastness of the wild lands have been gradually placed 

 upon the danger line of the advancing frontier. Thus, lacking the 

 caution and wild wit of the Black Duck, the northern wilderness 

 home of some of their relatives, they have suffered more keenly 

 than most of their allies. 



In 1901, special attention was called to the danger threatening 

 this bird* and the Woodcock by Dr. A. K. Fisher, and, according to 

 this author, in several sections sportsmen had realized the danger 



