THE BIRD STUDY BOOK 



the extensive settling of the prairies of the North- 

 west have been the causes of their disappearance. 



Diminution of Other Species. — Of the fifty-five 

 kinds of Wild Ducks, Geese, and Swans commonly 

 found in North America, there is probably not one 

 as numerous to-day as it was a hundred or even fifty 

 years ago. Why? The markets where their bodies 

 commanded a price of so much per head have swal- 

 lowed them up. The shotgun has also played havoc 

 with the Prairie Chicken and the Sage Grouse. Of 

 the former possibly as many as one thousand exist 

 on the Heath Hen Reservation of Martha's Vine- 

 yard, Massachusetts, a pitiful remnant of the eastern 

 form of the species. Even in the Prairie States 

 wide ranges of country that formerly knew them by 

 tens of thousands now know them no more. 



We might go farther and note also the rapidly 

 decreasing numbers of the Sandhill Crane and the 

 Limpkin of Florida. They are being shot for food. 

 The large White Egret, the Snowy Egret, and the 

 Roseate Spoonbill are found in lessening numbers each 

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