250 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



hopeful. But Mr. James Henry Rice, Jr., who is in charge of 

 game preservation in that State, says that while Snipe still are 

 plentiful, they have decreased 75 per cent, within his recollec- 

 tion. Mr. A. S. Eldredge tells me that Snipe are holding their 

 own fairlj^ well in southeastern Texas; but Mr. J. D. Mitchell, 

 whose experience over southern Texas is much wider and 

 longer, says that they have decreased seventy-five per cent, in 

 forty-four years. 



That great Snipe shooter, Mr. James J. Pringle, states that 

 for the first twenty years of his shooting in Louisiana he gen- 

 erally saw every day on the marshes not only great numbers 

 of Snipe but also great flocks of Ducks, and many otters, alli- 

 gators, raccoons, deer and birds and game of all kinds peculiar 

 to that locality. The diminution in the number of Snipe after 

 twenty years' shooting was accompanied also by a similar de- 

 crease in game of all kinds, and a few years later the shooting 

 broke down altogether and was given up. This falling off of 

 the shooting, and its final complete failure on these grounds, 

 he says was due to various causes. He believes that the dis- 

 appearance of the birds was due largely to the enclosure and 

 draining of the grounds, also to the improvements in and 

 cheapness of fireai-ms; to the extension of railroads, which 

 brought the grounds within reach of the markets, and to the 

 increase of gunners, not only in this region, but all through 

 the continent, so that there were not so many Snipe nor other 

 game birds in the world at the end of the twenty years as at 

 the beginning. Altogether, there was a sad decrease of all 

 kinds of birds and beasts, and the Attakapas country, which 

 was a great game region when he first began to shoot over it, 

 had lost the game which once formed its chief attraction for 

 him and his friends. During the last years of his shooting, 

 the Ducks, raccoons, otters and alligators disappeared, and 

 he seldom saw any. 



The cause given by most correspondents for the depletion 

 of the Snipe is overshooting or spring shooting. In four cases 

 the draining of meadows or the drawing off of water for man- 

 ufacturing purposes is spoken of, and at Scituate the breaking 

 in of the ocean at North River by a storm is noted, changing 



