106 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 109 



and flags. The mourning dove and prairie chicken, both 

 supposed to enjoy full protection, are not recuperating as 

 they should under favorable conditions. The prairie 

 chicken is no doubt kept from actual increase only by the 

 illegal shooting of a few poachers and would, if the laws 

 for its protection were rigidly enforced, become a much 

 more common and generally distributed bird. Of course 

 those now to be found are but a mere fraction of what were 

 here at one time, but I do not think the prairie chicken has 

 much decreased in numbers, locally, during the past twen- 

 ty years. Its plentifulness in any given year is in a great 

 measure dependent on the weather conditions at nesting 

 time. 



Among the more familiar of the smaller birds that 

 seem to me to have been distinctly reduced in numbers are 

 the bluebird, brown thrasher, barn swallow, cliff swallow, 

 and chij^ping sparrow. The dickcissel was certainly not as 

 abundant as I have seen it, but this species was always sub- 

 ject to a considerable variation in numbers from year to 

 year. 



There are, I think, fewer crows than at one time. The 

 mania for crow shooting, fostered for commercial reasons 

 by a great powder company, has swept this country as well 

 as other states and it is no uncommon thing to find several 

 dead crows under a single tree. It appears to me that the 

 pernicious practice of summer crow shooting is bound to 

 have a direct detrimental influence on the other breeding 

 birds, game birds as well as beneficial hawks and owls, the 

 herons and all other conspicuous bird targets. It is a very 

 bad policy indeed to encourage an army of boys and irre- 

 sponsible men to roam the country with guns throughout 

 the entire spring and summer. It is not human nature for 

 them to confine their sliooting to the crow alone; harmless 

 or valuable birds are killed and breeding game birds, if not 

 actually slaughtered, are much disturbed. Even were it 

 proved that the crow is a distinct menance to the game and 



