2 OUR VANISHING SHOREBIRDS. 



Unfortunately, shorebirds lay fewer eggs than any of the other 

 species generally termed game birds. They deposit only three or 

 four eggs, and hatch only one brood yearly. Xor are they in any wise 

 immune from the great mortality known to prevail among the smaller 

 birds. Their eggs and young are constantly preyed upon during the 

 breeding season by crows, gulls, and jaegers, and the far northern 

 country to which so many of them resort to nest is subject to sudden 

 cold storms, which kill many of the young. In the more temperate 

 climate of the United States small birds, in general, do not bring up 

 more than one young bird for every two eggs laid. Sometimes the 

 proportion of loss is much greater, actual count revealing a destruc-. 

 tion of TO to 80 per cent of nests and eggs. Shorebirds, with sets of 

 three or four eggs, probably do not on the average rear more than two 

 young for each breeding pair. 



It is not surprising, therefore, that birds of this family, with their 

 limited powers of reproduction, melt away under the relentless war- 

 fare waged upon them. Until recent years shorebirds have had al- 

 most no protection. Thus, the species most in need of stringent pro- 

 tection have really had the least. Xo useful birds which lay only 

 three or four eggs should be retained on the list of game birds. The 

 shorebirds should be relieved from persecution, and if we desire to 

 save from extermination a majority of the species, action must be 

 prompt. 



The protection of shorebirds need not be based solely on esthetic 

 or sentimental grounds, for few groups of birds more thoroughly 

 deserve protection from an economic standpoint. Shorebirds perform 

 an important service by their inroads upon mosquitoes, some of 

 which play so conspicuous a part in the dissemination of diseases. 

 Thus, nine species are known to feed upon mosquitoes, and hundreds 

 of the larvae or " wigglers " were found in several stomachs. Fifty- 

 three per. cent of the food of 28 northern phalaropes from one 

 locality consisted of mosquito larva?. The insects eaten include the 

 salt-marsh mosquito (Aedes sollicitans), for the suppresion of which 

 the State of New Jersey has gone to great expense. The nine species 

 of shorebirds known to eat mosquitoes are : 



Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus). Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi). 



Wilson phalarope (Steganopus tri- Least sandpiper (Pisobia minutilla). 



color). Semipalmated sandpiper (Ereunctes 



Stilt sandpiper (Micropalama himan- pusillus). 



topus). Killdeer (Oxyeclms vociferus). 



Pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia macu- Semipalmated plover (Aegialitis semi- 



lata). palmata). 



Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested by mosqui- 

 toes as well as by another set of pests, the horse-flies. Adults and 



