22 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
death. The great majority were so emaciated that 
they were practically feathers, and, of course, were 
unable to withstand the cold. One man killed two 
hundred pairs in a few hours. I shot a dozen birds. 
Late Tuesday afternoon I easily caught several birds 
on the snow and put them into a thawed spot on the 
edge of a swift-running stream in order that they 
would not perish, but upon going to the place next 
morning I found one frozen. These were fearfully 
emaciated and could scarcely fly. Two birds were 
killed in Charleston, in Broad Street. It will be many 
years before this fine bird can establish itself under 
the most favorable conditions.” 
Mr. Wayne gives a list of sixteen species which he 
found frozen to death, among them such hardy birds 
as the meadow lark and hermit thrush. He goes on 
to say: 
“Bluebirds and pine warblers were decimated. 
Mocking birds, cardinals, Florida towhees, Carolina 
wrens and all woodpeckers escaped.” 
It must take any species many years to recover from 
a wholesale sweeping off of its individuals, such as took 
place on this occasion, and if such a destruction of the 
woodcock took place all along a section of its winter 
home, as did in South Carolina, it is not strange that 
this species should have been regarded by naturalists 
as a vanishing bird. 
For many years in Louisiana, and possibly in other 
portions of the Southern States where the conditions 
