318 GAME BIRDS, WiLD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



The price increased. In the spring migration the birds were 

 met by a horde of market gunners, shot, packed in barrels and 

 shipped to the cities. There are tales of special refrigerator 

 cars sent out to the prairie regions, and parties of gunners 

 regularly employed to follow the birds and ship Plover and 

 Curlews by the carload to the Chicago market. These may 

 not be based on facts, but we know that the birds came to 

 market in great quantities. In the eastern breeding grounds of 

 the Uplander, in New England and the middle States, gunners 

 pursued them in July, as soon as the young were large and well- 

 feathered enough to be fit for market. Less than ten years of 

 such market hunting sufficed to reduce the numbers of the 

 species tremendously, and but for the wary nature of the bird 

 it would have been extirpated from the east before the close of 

 the nineteenth century. All sorts of stratagems were resorted 

 to to approach it or to lure it within call of the gunner. A 

 horse and wagon were used commonly in the west to drive 

 over the fields and prairies. The birds, having become accus- 

 tomed to farmers driving their teams afield, were not much 

 alarmed at the approach of the gunners in this fashion. In the 

 east, where the fenced lands prohibited the use of the vehicle, 

 other means were resorted to. Some gunners have been very 

 successful in circumventing this wary bird, which holds forth 

 every inducement for its capture, as it is considered a delicious 

 morsel on the table, and brings a high price. Probably the 

 Uplander would have become practically extinct already had 

 not many western States passed laws prohibiting the spring 

 shooting of Plover and the export of game, while several New 

 England States later began protecting it by law at all times. 

 The position of the bird is still precarious, however, and unless 

 perpetual protection is given it in every State it will disappear. 

 In the west it has not yet become so wary as in the east, 

 where it tests the skill of the hunter to the utmost. In the 

 breeding season it loses its habitual caution and seems con- 

 cerned mainly for the safety of its young. It will use every 

 artifice known to a bird to draw the invader away from their 

 vicinity, and cases have been known in the west where it has 

 flown directlv at the intruder. In the east it circles round 



