BIRDS OF PEASEMARSH 



extent that without greater protection they, 

 too, will be gone. 



The story of the Esquimau Curlew is one 

 which everyone should consider. No story 

 sounds a clearer note of warning. Eighty years 

 ago these birds migrated in great flocks of 

 many thousands. Far in the north they nested, 

 from Alaska on the west to Labrador on the 

 east, while the Barren Lands, the land the 

 Indians who accompanied Hearne to the Arctic 

 Sea, called the land of Little Sticks, because 

 only stunted trees grew there, was their favor- 

 ite nesting place. Their winters were spent in 

 the southern part of South America, near Cape 

 Horn. Twice each year their wings carried 

 them the length of two continents. Fortun- 

 ately their nesting places were so far north that 

 they could not be slaughtered there, for few 

 white men could reach them. There were no 

 fast trains to the Barren Lands of the Arctic, 

 and the Indians and Esquimaux, as we have 

 seen, were not guilty of exterminating wild 

 creatures. Any not needed for food were al- 

 lowed to live. It was the white man who 

 wiped out the Esquimau Curlew. He attacked 

 them when in dense flocks they made their 

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