GAME-BIRDS 241 



Bags of two hundred birds to a gun were not un- 

 common. 



On the Pacific coast water-fowl were as numer- 

 ous as on the Atlantic. Serious killing of them, 

 however, did not begin until after the Civil War, 

 but then, because of modern weapons, it proceeded 

 rapidly. Snow geese in 1878 were so plentiful 

 that crops to the amount of $200,000 were de- 

 stroyed by them in one county of California. As 

 recently as 1906 two men shot 450 geese in one 

 day; but now, sixteen years later, the birds are 

 scarce. Not one tenth the number of geese and 

 ducks that showed themselves in California during 

 their annual migrations fifty years ago show them- 

 selves to-day. 



The story of water-fowl in the Middle West has 

 been much the same. Fifty years ago the lakes 

 and sloughs of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and 

 other Central States teemed with tens of millions 

 of ducks. Every stream and marsh was the feed- 

 ing-spot of great flocks ; the valley of the Missis- 

 sippi lay in the direct line of migration of the birds 

 which breed in upper Canada and places further 

 north. Throughout the autumn months a steady 

 stream flowed slowly south, sometimes darkening 

 the sky with its multitudes. 



And these birds were killed by the hundred 

 thousand. The pioneer settlers utilized them as 

 food. Later, so-called sportsmen shot them for 

 the sheer pleasure of killing and for their feathers ; 



