262 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194 5 



Georgia, is dwindling in numbers and can be saved only by diligent 

 protection. 



Several shore birds are becoming scarce, even though provided 

 protection through the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The last specimen 

 record of an Eskimo curlew for the United States was in Nebraska 

 in April 1915, though a bird was collected in Argentina in January 

 1925. One was reported as a sight record from Hastings, Nebr., April 

 8, 1926. There are no reliable records since then, and the species is 

 probably gone. Of other shore birds, the Hudsonian godwit seems 

 to be nearest the vanishing point. It nests on the Barren Grounds 

 from Alaska to Hudson Bay, and migrates to South America where 

 it winters. It became greatly reduced during the game-marketing 

 days of the eighties and nineties and has never been able to recover. 



The largest and most magnificient woodpecker of the United States, 

 the ivoiy-billed woodpecker, is now reduced to a few individuals. 

 Probably all these, and certainly most of them, are in a heavily forested 

 tract in Louisiana. Dense forests of large trees are essential for the 

 existence of the ivorybill. Unless its Louisiana home can be saved 

 from the lumberman's ax, the ivorybill is doomed. And with the 

 urgent war call of "Timber ! Timber !" the outlook for retaining this 

 species in our fauna is not hopeful. 



Three of our small passerine birds have approached the danger line. 

 One of these, the dusky kinglet, a midget bird of Guadalupe Island, 

 Lower California, may now have followed other vanished birds on 

 that island. Bachman's warbler of the southeastern United States, 

 always in recent times a rare bird, barely maintains its population, 

 and in general appears to be on the decline. The Ipswich sparrow, a 

 species related to the savanna sparrow, has a breeding range restricted 

 to small Sable Island, Nova Scotia, and in winter is found from there 

 south along the sand dunes of the Atlantic coast to Georgia. On 

 Sable Island it nests only near the beach. Wave action from severe 

 storms may at any time destroy its nesting habitat. 



Both the American crocodile and the Mississippi alligator have de- 

 creased in numbers in their habitats in the swamps of the Southeastern 

 States. The crocodile never occurred within our United States bound- 

 aries proper except in extreme southern Florida. It differs from the 

 alligator in its longer and slenderer body, its much more pointed 

 snout, and longer teeth. Both the crocodile and the alligator have 

 been hunted for their hide9 for use in leather manufacture. Many of 

 them have also been wantonly killed out of sheer prejudice and hatred 

 for an ungainly reptilian with an unfriendly appearance. The catch- 

 ing of the young of both species and their sale as pets to be transplanted 

 to a more northern climate unsuited to them has killed hundreds. 

 The crocodile is almost a relic of the past in the United States. The 

 alligator, under proper protection, will probably stay with us. 



