354 USEFUL BUiDS. 



CHAPTER XL 



CHECKS UPON THE INCREASE OF USEFUL BIRDS. 



He who has an}' doubt al)out the former abundance of the 

 larger birds in Massachusetts should read the accounts i)ul)- 

 lished by some of the earlier voyagers and settlers regarding 

 the great numbers of water birds, shore birds, game birds, 

 Hawks and Eagles, Great Auks, Cranes, Herons, wild Swans, 

 Canada Geese, Snow Geese, Brant Geese, and Turkeys, that 

 were found in the early j^ears of the colony. We read of 

 a thousand wild Turkeys reported as seen in a day, of forty 

 Partridges seen in one tree and sixty Quail in another, of 

 forty or fifty Ducks killed at a shot, of twelve score shore 

 birds killed at two discharges of a fowling piece, of flocks of 

 Passenger Pigeons that oljscured the sky to the horizon in 

 all directions, and of nesting places where for miles the 

 trees were loaded with Pigeons' nests. 



It is now well known that the Great Auk and the Labrador 

 Duck have become extinct ; that wild Turkeys, Swans, Pas- 

 senger Pigeons, Cranes, and Snow Geese have practically 

 disappeared from the State ; and that the shore birds, game 

 birds, and fresh-water Ducks have decreased tremendously 

 in numbers. No records regarding the increase or decrease 

 of the smaller birds have been made until within recent 

 years, and we know only in a general way that certain spe- 

 cies, like Swallows, Sparrows, and Robins, increased with 

 and after the clearing and settling of the country, and that 

 within the last half century there has been a considerable 

 local decrease of these and other native birds, particularly 

 about the centers of population.^ Also, it is evident that 

 small birds are not nearly as plentifid here as they are in 



> Director "William T. Hornaday of the New York Zoological Park estimated, 

 from reports received by him, that birds had decreased twenty-seven per cent, in 

 Massachusetts during tlie fifteen years previous to 1898. The result of my own 

 inquiries regarding the decrease of birds in Massachusetts was embodied m a 

 report of one hundred and three pages made to the State Board of Agriculture ia 



