500 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



wild-fowl are very large. Mr. Frank M. Miller, chairman of 

 the Fish and Game Commission of Louisiana, estimates that 

 two and one-half million wild-fowl were killed in that State 

 in the season of 1908-09. His estimate is based on the reports 

 of gunners and game wardens, with a very liberal allowance 

 for exaggeration. Had the wild-fowl of this country been con- 

 served, they might have yielded a perpetual annual product 

 worth many millions of dollars. 



In the older parts of the country, where wild-fowl are now 

 much diminished in numbers as compared with their former 

 abundance, much of their economic value to the inhabitants 

 consists in their attraction for sportsmen. Massachusetts 

 sportsmen frequently have asserted that in the pursuit of 

 Ducks and Geese they spend from five dollars to twenty-five 

 dollars for every bird they kill, and were wild-fowl numerous 

 throughout New England, large sums would be distributed 

 annually by sportsmen to hotels, boatmen, farmers and.guides, 

 and the business of country merchants would be increased. 

 Many species of wild-fowl, if properly conserved, would do 

 good service to agricultural communities by destroying insects 

 and weed seeds. 



Loons are not beneficial in this respect. They are believed 

 to feed mainly on fish and other aquatic animals, and there- 

 fore some people have regarded them as injurious to food fish. 

 No thorough study of their food has been made; but it seems 

 probable that they are beneficial rather than injurious to 

 game fish. They feed on the natural enemies of the fish as 

 well as on the fish themselves and thereby keep a healthful 

 balance among the forms of aquatic life, and help to maintain 

 rather than to decrease the numbers of food fish useful to man- 

 kind. The Mergansers or Sheldrakes, as they are commonly 

 called, evidently perform a similar office. The Scoters, or so- 

 called "Coots," are regarded by some short-sighted persons 

 as detrimental to the shell-fisheries, because these birds are 

 known to eat edible shell-fish; but they devour also some of 

 the most destructive enemies of these shell-fish. The chief 

 utility of the Scoters and Old-squaws lies in their abilitj'^ to 

 dive in deep water and feed on various forms of marine life. 



