466 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



they have been growing rare. I have seen several within 

 five or six years." (Gerry.) " Sixty years ago the willet 

 was abundant, and bred liere. Fifteen to eighteen years 

 ago a few were seen each season. Now tliey are gone ; only 

 an occasional straggler now seen." (Mackay.) "Nearly 

 exterminated." (Perkins.) 



The greater and the lesser yellowlegs are still fairly com- 

 mon in some seasons and localities, but they were once very 

 abundant, and they are probably still decreasing in spite 

 of the protection afforded them on some of their northern 

 breeding grounds. " The lesser yellowlegs have fallen off on 

 Nantucket 60 per cent in fifteen years, and the winter yellow- 

 legs about the same. There also has been a considerable 

 falling oft' in the number of these birds from Massachusetts 

 sources in the Boston market." (Mackay.) The yellow- 

 legs were the only shore birds reported as common in the 

 flight in Rhode Island in 1904. 



The Bartramian sandpiper, commonly known as the up- 

 land plover, a bird which formerh^ bred on grassy hills all 

 over the State, and migrated southward along om' coasts in 

 great flocks, is in imminent danger of extirpation. Thirty- 

 five years ago these birds bred commonly within the city limits 

 of Worcester, about Fitchburg and in the country around 

 and between those cities. A few still breed in Worces- 

 ter and Berkshire counties, on Nantucket, and possibly 

 elsewhere in the State, so that there is still a nucleus, which, 

 if protected, may save the species. Their former abundance 

 is shown by some of the statements of the older gunners. 

 " When I was a boy, nine years old, my father killed ninety 

 upland plover in one day. He killed sixteen without pick- 

 ing one up." (Gerry.) This was about seventy-five years 

 ago, in the days of muzzle-loading guns. "Breeding birds, 

 or those living on Nantucket, have fallen oft' ()6 per cent in 

 the last fifteen years." (Mackay.) "Upland plover ex- 

 tinct here from hunting, but breeds sparingly in northern 

 Worcester County." (W. S. Perry, Worcester.) Five 

 reports from localities where this bird formerly bred give it 

 as nearing extinction, and four as extinct. This is one of 

 the most useful of all birds in grass-land, feeding largely on 



