450 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



with the disappearance of the woodland ; game birds, inchid- 

 ing doves and wild fowl ; cave or cliff swallows, which have 

 disappeared locally as breeders; and tree swallows, which 

 are possibly less abundant as migrants." 



President Theodore Roosevelt, who is an accurate observer 

 of animal life, writes from his home on Long Island, N. Y. : 

 " Here at Oyster Bay my observations have gone over thu'ty- 

 one years. During that time I do not believe there has been 

 any diminution in the number of birds, as a whole. Quail 

 and woodcock are not as plentiful as they were ; I am in- 

 clined to think that last winter may have been hard on quail 

 around here. But, on the other hand, there are one or two 

 other Avild birds that, I think, have increased in numbers." 

 Later he wrote, in response to an inquiry regarding the 

 shore birds : "During my time there have never been any 

 but scattering shore birds in my neighborhood on the north 

 shore of Long Island, and there are now as many of these 

 as there ever were. During the same period there has been 

 a great diminution in the shore birds, once so plentiful, in 

 the Great South Bay on the south shore of Long Island ; as 

 I happen to know, because my uncle lives there." 



Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright of Fairfield, Conn., says that, 

 speaking locally for Fairfield and ten miles inland, some 

 species have decreased, others have held their own. The 

 great horned owl is nearly extinct. Wood ducks have be- 

 come very rare within ten years ; also mourning doves ; 

 scarlet tanagers and shore birds in general have decreased. 



Mr. E. Hart Geer, secretar}^ of the Connecticut Commis- 

 sion of Fisheries and Game, writes that shore birds have 

 decreased greatly, and that river ducks have decreased every 

 year. He says there was as good a flight during the fall 

 of 1904 as was consistent with the "extermination due to 

 unrestricted shooting." 



]\Ir. Harry Hathaway writes from Providence, R. I. : " The 

 shore birds, game birds, hawks and owls are decreasing in 

 the State generally, but no appreciable decrease is occurring 

 in other species, and some few species are increasing in num- 

 bers." He says that a fair estimate of the decrease of the 

 birds named would be one-half in fifteen years, but that this 

 may be too large, as his observations have been " locally 



