VANISHING BIRDS 



The student of Minnesota ornithology to-day has presented 

 to him conditions differing greatly from those that existed forty 

 or fifty years ago, when the first formal work on the birds of the 

 state began. Birds as a whole, have, during that interval, under- 

 gone a very great diminution in numbers. Some species, formerly 

 abundant, are now represented by a mere remnant, while a few 

 have disappeared entirely. This is especially true of the birds 

 known as Game Birds, but many others have not been able to 

 hold their own against destructive agencies or to adapt themselves 

 to greatly altered conditions. A very few, mostly the smaller insec- 

 tivorous species to which the presence of man is not specially 

 inimical, have maintained their. former abundance or even increased 

 in numbers. 



The essential underlying cause, direct and indirect, of this 

 gradual disappearance of our birds is, plainly enough, the increas- 

 ing presence of man himself. Some birds are so constituted by 

 nature that their retreat before advancing civilization must be 

 inevitable, no matter what degree of protection is afforded them. 

 With a much larger number the conditions necessary for their 

 existence are destroyed by the activities of man. The prairies are 

 plowed up, the forests are cut down, the undergrowth cleared 

 away, lakes and marshes drained, and thus the nesting places, 

 feeding grounds, and shelters are appropriated by man. Hunting, 

 especially in the earlier years when laws were lax, has been 

 most destructive of game birds; and always, early and late, many 

 birds of many kinds have been killed through sheer wantonness. 

 With man came the domestic cat, and in its vast increase it has 

 become a most destructive agent of our wild birds. 



But a great awakening and intelligent understanding has come 

 of late years, and with the better law enforcement and wide-spread 

 interest in all wild things that now prevail, there is good promise 

 that the waste of our bird-life may be effectively checked and that 

 conditions resembling, in some degree at least, those of former 

 days may be restored. 



In addition to those birds that have disappeared entirely, the 

 following species seem to have suffered most markedly: 



Loon. Still fairly common during migrations and in some remote 

 regions, but much less in evidence than formerly. 



