2oo THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



' having discharged their harquebus-shot, such a flock of Cranes (the 

 most part white) arose, with such a crye, redoubled by many ecchoes, 

 as if an armie of men had showted together.' The Brown or Sand- 

 hill Crane has not been seen in this region for many years past, 

 although it is still not uncommon in the West. The learned Pro- 

 fessor Kalm, who travelled in this country in 1748-49, and resided 

 some time at Swedesborough, New Jersey, noticed this bird on its 

 northern flight about the middle of February. At that time they 

 usually alighted, but remained for a short time only, every spring, in 

 comparatively limited numbers ; but he was assured by a colonist, 

 above ninety years of age, that in his youth (or about the year 1670) 

 Cranes came in hundreds. The Rough-billed Pelican was also 

 frequent on the Hudson and the Delaware, but is now a very rare 

 visitant to the last-mentioned river only. 



" While ornithologists, however, have to deplore the diminution 

 in the number of the more conspicuous birds which has taken place 

 during the last century, it is gratifying to find a very sensible increase 

 in the number of other species. Many of the Warblers, for example, 

 then considered rare, are now found to be abundant, a beneficial 

 increase, for which we are no doubt indebted to the fact of our effi- 

 cient game-laws providing for the protection of insectivorous birds. 

 But, on the other hand, the constant shooting of ' Bay Snipe' and 

 shore birds generally by market gunners, always on the watch for 

 their arrival, has seriously reduced the flocks of many species formerly 

 known to abound in districts now but thinly peopled by this interest- 

 ing class. The late Mr. George Ord assured the writer that, during 

 his excursions to the coast with Wilson, the distinguished ornitholo- 

 gist, the Avocet, Stilt, and other Waders which are becoming rare in 

 our day were then quite plentiful, so that there is every reason to 

 fear that in the course of a few years more they also may disappear. 



" In Chesapeake Bay, the winter resort of a great variety of wild 

 fowl, birds, although still numerous, are, through the same influences, 

 becoming every year less abundant, and unless the present reprehen- 

 sible and most destructive system of shooting wholesale slaughter 

 it may with propriety be called be rigidly put down [it since has 

 been], the decrease will, in all likelihood, become permanent, to the 

 great regret of every true-minded naturalist. We have but to look 

 into the history of some of the birds of the British Islands as a 

 warning against the continuance of the destroying influences to 

 which many of those of our own country are now subjected. Dur- 



