18 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



:iuent those wooded districts ; and who, not content with destroy- 

 ing the parent birds, at all seasons, even while hatching and ho- 

 vering their broods, shooting the half-fledged cheepers in whole 

 hatchings at a shot, and trapping them in deep snows — with a 

 degree of wantonness equally barbarous and unmeaning, steal 

 or break all the eggs which they can find. 



To this add the spring burnings of the forest land, and you have 

 cause enough to account for the extermination of the Pinnated 

 Grouse, or Heath-Hen ; who is not now to be shot in such num- 

 bers as to render it Aj^^orth the while to hunt for him nearer than 

 Michigan or Illinois. 



I should, perhaps, here state as a farther proof of the correct- 

 ness of my assertion, that, on the little island of Martha's Vine- 

 yard, off the coast of Massachusetts, where the Heath-Cock, once 

 abundant, had nearljP become extinct, the species was preserved 

 from annihilation by the very praiseworthy means, equally de- 

 termined and energetical, adopted by the citizens in general to 

 prevent its extermination. 



This fine bird is again plentiful in that, its last locality, on the 

 Atlantic coast ; and it is like to remain so, as the people take an 

 honorable pride in preserving it, and neither kill it themselves, 

 nor allow visitors to do so, except in the proper seasons, and 

 under restrictions as to numbers. For a space, I believe, of five 

 years the prohibition to kill was absolute ; and the fine so heavy, 

 and so rigorously enforced — backed as it was by public opinion 

 — that the desired end was gained. 



The period, if I am not mistaken, for which the Grouse bar- 

 rens were closed has expired, and, under some limitations, of the 

 the nature of which I am not exactly aware, they may be visited 

 by sportsmen henceforth. 



The destruction of the smaller and more abundant species is to 

 be attributed to different reasons — but the operation of these is 

 more rapid and more fatal than those which have led to the ex- 

 tinction of the races we have mentioned. 



The first of these causes is the very singular, if not incompre- 

 hensible, characteristic of the people of the United States, to dis- 



