THE DECREASE OF WILDFOWL. 



The constant decrease of the number of our wild- 

 fowl is a subject of frequent complaint by gunners 

 whose memory goes back twenty-five or thirty years. 

 They compare the scarcity of to-day with the abundance 

 of old times, and continually inquire why it is that the 

 birds are growing yearly less and less in number. 



Various explanations of the change are given. The 

 blame is laid on the market-shooter, on the supposed 

 destruction of birds and eggs on the northern breeding 

 grounds, and on supposed changes in the lines of flight 

 by the migratory birds, but most gunners are unwilling 

 to accept the logic of events and to acknowledge that 

 the principal cause of the lessened number of the fowl 

 lies with the gunners themselves, and is an inevitable 

 accompaniment of civilization, not to be changed ex- 

 cept by radical measures. Many of these men, no 

 doubt, merely repeat what they have heard other people 

 say, but there are others who advance these remote 

 causes through pure selfishness, realizing that if they 

 admit the enormous destruction by gunners they must 

 logically advocate the abridgment of the shooting sea- 

 son, which means the abolition of spring shooting. 



One of the most grotesquely fantastic explanations 

 of the scarcity of wildfowl was put forth several years 

 ago in the newspapers, and was soon afterward fathered 

 by a society bearing the impressive name, National 



576 



