88 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



bird is rare or decreasing along the Atlantic coast from the 

 Provinces to Maryland and Virginia, where in the winter of 

 1907-08 it was plentiful. It appears to be decreasing also in 

 some localities in Connecticut. In Massachusetts it appears 

 to be least uncommon in Plymouth County, where it occurs 

 quite regularly in some of the ponds. Dr. Albert H. Tuttle of 

 Cambridge writes that nineteen were killed in one volley at 

 Assawompsett in 1906, and that he has seen hundreds at this 

 lake for several years. They have learned to distrust the 

 decoys, and so fewer are shot than formerly. Mr. Israel R. 

 Sheldon of Pawtuxet, R. I., writes me that the opening of the 

 breach at Point Judith Pond has killed off most of the " feed," 

 but Baldpates, which were once numerous there, are still com- 

 mon in the pond. Mr. Howard Remington (1908) of Provi- 

 dence states that the Baldpate has decreased nearly one 

 hundred per cent, in ten years' time, because of shooting from 

 power boats and spring shooting, but a few still winter in Rhode 

 Island. Mr. Samuel L. BufEngton of Swansea, Mass., near 

 the Rhode Island line, states that the Baldpate is not un- 

 common on the coast, but he has never seen it up the river in 

 his vicinity. Mr. C. O. Zerrahn says that he has observed 

 but one in Milton, Mass., but that a few are shot at Ponka- 

 poag Pond, Canton, Mass., every year. Mr. Gardiner G. Ham- 

 mond says that eight or ten are taken in his vicinity on 

 Martha's Vineyard each year. Mr. Robert O. Morris says 

 that thej^ have decreased ninety per cent, near Springfield, 

 Mass., in thirty years. 



The Baldpate is one of the wariest of all Ducks, and its 

 whistled alarm notes serve well to warn other and less astute 

 birds. Elliot says that when speeding high in air the flock 

 flies in a line nearly abreast, with the leader a little in ad- 

 vance in the middle, but when moving about ordinarily from 

 place to place on the marsh they fly like a flock of pigeons. 

 This bird breeds mainly in the west, and a line drawn from 

 the western coast of Hudson Bay to the western shore of 

 Lake Michigan marks approximately the eastern boundary 

 of its breeding range. In its southeastward migration toward 

 the Atlantic coast it naturally reaches Chesapeake Bay in 



