No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIRDS. 437 



doubtedly these were the .same species that are now gener- 

 ally known in Massachusetts by these vernacular names. 



Geese were fed to the dogs and pigeons to the hogs ; but, 

 notwithstanding the great waste of bird-life, no appreciable 

 effect on the abundance of the bh'ds was noticed during the 

 first years of settlement, for AVoods says that, in spite of 

 the shooting and the ' ' frighting of the fowle " . . . "I have 

 seene more, living and dead, the last yeare than I have 

 done in former yeares." * 



The Decrease of Birds in Past Centuries. 



The great auk soon disappeared. The great cranes, both 

 brown and white, birds of the open country, were anni- 

 hilated by the settler's rifle. The Canada goose, which was 

 once found in the State throughout the year, and probably 

 bred about the inland ponds and marshes, was driven out, 

 and became a mere migrant in spring and fall. The Avild 

 turkey and heath hen were hunted awa}^ to the deep woods ; 

 but geese, ducks, shore birds, passenger pigeons and rutted 

 grouse still existed in abundance until the early part of the 

 nineteenth century. 



An old gentleman named Greenwood, a responsible man, 

 who was once keeper of the Ipswich Light, told me in 187(5 

 that in the early part of the century (I have no memo- 

 randum of the date) he, with his father and brothers, had 

 to get oxen and sled to haul home the birds, mainly geese 

 and ducks, which they had killed in one day about Thanks- 

 giving time near the mouth of the Ipswich River. 



Dwight tells us, in 182 l,f that there were then hardly 

 any wild animals remaining besides a few small species ; 

 that wild turkeys had greatly lessentjd in numbers, and in 

 the most populous parts of th(^ country were not very often 

 seen ; that grouse were not common, but that water-fowl 

 still existed in great abundance. 



This brief glance at two centuries of the history of j\Ias- 



* William Woods' "New Eiij^laiid's prospect," from which this was taken, 

 was first printed in London in Ki.'U. 



t Dwight's "Travels in New England and New York," 1821, Vol. I., ])p. 

 52-55. The grouso sp()k(>n of hero is prohahly the heath hen, as Dwiglit and 

 other writers mention this hird as the grouse or pheasant, — a hird distinrl from 

 the partridge, or rul'fed grouse, and never as common. 



