552 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



number and the practical extinction of some species from over- 

 shooting. 



This so-called change of flight is easily explained. A few 

 families of Knots or Red-breasts, for example, reared in the 

 same locality in the far north, start down the Atlantic coast in 

 their migration. Gunners on the Bay of Fundy first decimate 

 the birds, which then cross to Cape Cod, pass a blind occupied 

 by an experienced gunner, who gets nearly all of them, and 

 the next gunner a little farther down the beach kills what 

 are left. There will be no more of those birds coming down 

 the Atlantic coast from that nesting place for some time. 

 This has happened all along the Atlantic coast. 



Mr. William R. Sears tells of an instance where fourteen 

 Summer Yellow-legs came to decoys where two men were 

 shooting, and eleven were killed there, while the other three 

 were shot by a gunner at another stand not far away. Mr. 

 W. D. Carpenter of Nantucket tells me that one day he killed 

 all the Teal there were in a pond, — fifteen in number. 



I know of an instance where a market hunter who was 

 very skilful called a "bunch" of shore birds and not one 

 escaped. This is one explanation of the so-called change 

 in their line of flight, — it is deflected into the pot, — but 

 there is another. A few birds shot at, injured perhaps, but 

 not mortally, manage to escape, and, recognizing the points 

 where their comrades were slain, keep well off shore in the 

 future, or fly high and perhaps induce their companions to do 

 likewise. Fishermen and sailors often see or hear such flights 

 off* shore. 



Undoubtedly the stream of migration widens or contracts 

 somewhat with the fluctuations in the numbers of a species. 

 A good breeding season in the northwest, or better protection 

 of the birds there, may result in an extension of the migration 

 wave to the eastward. Under such conditions wild-fowl in- 

 crease in numbers in New England, while opposite conditions 

 tend to contract the migration range of the species and narrow 

 the stream of migration. Undoubtedly the killing off of certain 

 species in the east has had the latter effect, and I believe that 

 in this way only have any great or permanent changes in the 



