No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIRDS. 455 



more are being killed now than ever before, on account of the 

 use of trained live decoys. This bird, though once breed- 

 ing here, now breeds mainly north of the United States. 

 According to Mr. William Brewster, it is now protected on 

 its breeding grounds on the island of Anticosti. This 

 island, some forty miles in length, is studded with numer- 

 ous ponds, where the geese can now breed unmolested. 

 This protection, together with the extreme wariness the birds 

 have acquired, may account in part for their having held 

 their numbers so well in their flights along our coast for the 

 last twenty years. Fifty to seventy years ago the geese 

 often flew very low over the country, and sometimes they 

 alighted in pastures and corn fields ; now they usually fly 

 high, and seldom alight except on some sheet of water. 

 Mr. Mackay believes that the Canada geese are not now 

 decreasing at Nantucket. 



The Brant goose, which was once remarkably abundant all 

 along our shores, was very common some seasons in migra- 

 tion at Chatham and some other points on Cape Cod up to 

 the latter part of the last century, but rare elsewhere. I 

 am informed by Mr. Elbridge Gerry that Brant are now 

 rare even there, in comparison with their former numbers. 



These are probably the only three species of geese that 

 were ever abundant in Massachusetts. 



The Bay and Sea Ducks ( Subfamily FuligulincB) . 

 Ducks are divided into three subfamilies, bay and sea ducks, 

 river and pond ducks, and mergansers or sheldrakes. 



The first subfamily, the bay and sea ducks, is composed 

 of birds that find their food by diving. These birds breed 

 mainly in the far north, where, excepting the eiders, they 

 are not much molested. They can usually keep well away 

 from the shore, and can escape the gunner by diving and 

 swimming under water, as well as by flight. Most of them 

 are not highly esteemed as food, on account of their fishy 

 flavor, and for these reasons they have on the whole main- 

 tained their numbers better than any other ducks. One 

 species, however, the ruddy duck, which habitually feeds in 

 small ponds near the sea, has decreased very rapidly of late. 

 They once bred in Massachusetts. Thirty years ago they 



