59^ VUCK SHOOTING. 



America to-day, no man ought to wish to kill birds in 

 such a wholesale way. 



In the years between 1870 and 1875 it was not un- 

 common for fifteen thousand ducks to be killed in a sin- 

 gle day on the Chesapeake Bay. At the present day 

 one-fifth of this number would be a very large score. 



It is greatly to be desired that all States may enact 

 laws something like those of North Dakota, where the 

 number of birds that may be killed in a day is limited 

 to twenty-five. If such a law could be put into opera- 

 tion, and the shooting season could be shortened, so 

 that it would last for three or four months, instead of 

 eight, the effect on our wildfowl would soon be seen. 



NATURAL ENEMIES. 



In the old times, when wildfowl were so enormously 

 abundant over most of the country, it seemed as if their 

 numbers could never be greatly reduced. At that 

 period, those interested in the subject imagined that 

 the only important dangers to which the birds were 

 exposed were such wholesale methods of destruction 

 as over-shooting and netting. Now, however, since 

 the birds have grown fewer, since hundreds use the 

 shotgun where ten did formerly, when the western 

 and a part of the northern breeding grounds have 

 been turned into farms and summer resorts, and when, 

 notwithstanding all this, the shooting continues over 



