DESTRUCTION AND PROTECTION 537 



wood that grow in it are cut down, the woodcock no 

 longer has a home. 



While all these changes are going on, gunners are 

 becoming more numerous. With the settling up of the 

 country there is an increasing demand for the flesh of 

 game, and, between the attacks of man, the de- 

 struction of their old homes and the ravages of pred- 

 atory birds and mammals, in many regions the game 

 birds have been almost exterminated. 



Among their natural enemies are all the carnivorous 

 mammals, many of the hawks and owls, and not a few 

 domestic animals. In the old times, when birds were 

 less pursued by man and had a range far wider than at 

 present, their annual increase in numbers more than 

 made up the loss from the attacks of natural enemies, 

 but over much of the territory of trie United States 

 that time has long passed. 



In thickly settled countries, the domestic dog, self- 

 hunting through the spring and summer, destroys great 

 numbers of the nests and eggs of song and game birds, 

 while the house cat, the pet of the kitchen or the house 

 cat run wild, is very destructive. The harm done by 

 the farmer's dog in his travels through the fields is not 

 generally understood. Two or three dogs from neigh- 

 boring farms may start out in company and be gone all 

 day perhaps for several days hunting. Among the 

 prey that they capture may, perhaps, be a woodchuck, 

 the remains of which the farmer finds later and speaks 

 of with pride as having been killed by his dogs. He 

 does not know that while hunting the dogs may have 



