Summer Bird Life at Delavan 107 



other birds, they will suffer vastly more from this promis- 

 cuous summer huutiug than from the crow itself. 



All breeding hawks are distinctly reduced in numbers. 

 I saw, during the three weeks, only one marsh hawk and 

 one Cooper's hawk. The marsh hawk formerly was really 

 common and the red-tail was a regular breeder in consid- 

 erable numbers. The summer crow shooters are, I think, 

 largely to blame for this disgraceful extermination of 

 breeding hawks. The nighthawk, pied-billed grebe, and 

 wood duck are less in numbers than formerly; of the first 

 two I happened to see only a single example of each. Wood 

 ducks are still much commoner as nesting birds than in 

 most parts of the range of the species, but are not so plenti- 

 ful ae they were twenty or more years ago. 



I saw no Forster's terns nor upland plovers whatever; 

 they seem to have completely disappeared from their old 

 breeding haunts; and saddest of all the ruffed grouse has 

 gone — 1 interviewed many hunters and others and could 

 not find a single person who has seen one in five or six 

 years. Some few are doubtfully reported in the extreme 

 northern part of the county but the woods about Delavan 

 where the grouse was formerly plentiful are absolutely 

 barren of this glorious bird. The grouse was not extermin- 

 ated by shooters; I think the pasturing of the wood lots 

 and the ever present house cat are chiefly to blame. The 

 Hungarian partridge, a poor substitute indeed, has been, 

 introduced, is locally common just north of us, and may 

 eventually take the place of the native bird. 



Altogether, during the three weeks' visit, I saw sixty- 

 eight species of breeding birds, but as I made no special 

 effort to search out certain kinds the list is much smaller 

 than it might have been. The immense weed, grass, and 

 fern grown marsh or low-land prairie, which has been the 

 breeding grounds for Henslow's sparrows and short-billed 

 marsh wrens since long, long before my time, is being 

 slowly reclaimed. The cornfields and pastures are eating 

 into it on all sides, and will, before many years, meet in its 



