CAUSES. 583 



(a) Shooting seasons far too long; in some States 

 lasting from September to May, or for eight months of 

 the year. The ducks are shot from the time they arrive 

 from the North in the fall until they leave for the 

 North in the spring. 



(b) Methods that are too destructive, as batteries, 

 night shooting, bush blinds, sailing. 



(c) Big bags by sportsmen who shoot for recrea- 

 tion. 



(d) Shooting for market. Certain men devote all 

 their time while the fowl are with us to shooting them 

 for sale to game dealers. Often they kill by methods 

 that are illegal. 



In consequence of the diminution of the number of 

 our birds, other causes which were formerly trivial 

 have assumed a greater relative importance. Two of 

 these are the destruction of eggs and fowl, young and 

 old, on their breeding ground, by natives, and poison- 

 ing by lead taken in with the food. The last, though 

 odd and unexpected, is not sufficiently destructive to 

 require serious consideration. 



Up to the year i860, gunning was practiced by com- 

 paratively few individuals in this country, and they 

 were not enough to make any considerable impression 

 on the hordes of wildfowl that had always thronged 

 our lakes, streams and bays. During the five years of 

 the Civil War, all Southern ducking-grounds, and most 

 of those in the North, had almost complete rest, and 

 the number of fowl killed was inconsiderable. They 

 had time during these years of almost no shooting to 



