462 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The black-crowned night heron has certainly been driven 

 out from three inland localities where I formerly knew it to 

 breed. The birds were persecuted by egg-hunters and gun- 

 ners, so that they were forced to change their breeding grounds 

 nearly every year ; and finally they were killed or scattered, 

 so that these heronries exist only as memories of the past. 

 The birds have persisted, however, along the coast, and 

 some of their heronries are now protected. All other herons 

 besides those mentioned above are regarded as accidental in 

 Massachusetts. 



Family Rdllidm. Rails, Gallinules and Coots. 

 These birds, particularly the rails, are rather secretive, 

 and ordinarily are seldom seen in this region. Their habits 

 protect them. The gallinules are not known ever to have 

 been common. The coots, the least secretive of the family, 

 probably have decreased, while the rails seem to hold their 

 own except where driven out by floods or the draining of 

 meadows. They are probably overlooked by most gunners. 

 Only a few observers report on them at all ; these find them 

 about the same as ever, except Mr. Edward A. Bangs, who 

 says : * ' On occasional trips to the Sudbury marshes at 

 Wayland it seems to me that the ducks, rails, herons, 

 etc., have almost disappeared." 



Order Limicolce. 



Shore Birds. Only twelve of the forty-two species of 

 shore birds known to inhabit the State or migrate through 

 it can now be regarded as at all common. Three species 

 are uncommon ; fourteen, rare ; and the rest merely acci- 

 dental or casual. Most of those now considered common 

 were formerly very abundant, as were also some which are 

 now rare. Nearly all the larger species are now either un- 

 common, rare or casual. Some of them are nearly extir- 

 pated or driven off our coasts. A few of the accidental 

 species never were common here, but the others probably 

 were. The common smaller species have been saved from 

 total destruction, some by their small size, which makes 

 shooting them of little profit, and some by not consort- 

 ing together in large flocks. For these reasons mainly, 



