BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 51 



History. 



Probably the Loon once bred in suitable localities through- 

 out Massachusetts. Wilson says that it is said to breed in 

 " Missibisci Pond near Boston." Nuttall states that he found 

 and captured in the Chelsea marshes (now Revere) a young 

 bird partly grown. S. Davis asserts in his Notes on Plym- 

 outh, Mass. (1815), that the "loon cries and leaves her eggs" 

 on the lesser island in Fresh Lake, now Billington Sea.^ 

 Old gunners have assured me that they have seen the Loon 

 with small young near the shores of Buzzards Bay. Others 

 report the bird as formerly breeding on Block Island, R. I. ; 

 and they bred about the ponds of northern Worcester County 

 when I first visited them, more than thirty years ago. In 

 1888 Brewster reported them as breeding in all ponds of suffi- 

 cient size near Winchendon, Mass.^ They have gradually dis- 

 appeared from Massachusetts waters in the breeding season. 

 Probably they have not been driven away, as neither human 

 neighbors nor much shooting have driven Loons from a 

 favorite nesting place, but their eggs have been taken and the 

 birds have been shot one by one, until all have vanished. 

 There may be a few pairs still breeding in the State. If so, I 

 cannot learn of them. 



The Loon is not considered desirable as a table fowl. I 

 have tasted one and do not care for more. Indians and some 

 fishermen eat Loons and consider the young quite palatable. 

 They are pursued mainly for mere sport by the devotees of 

 the rifle and shotgun, and whenever one is accidentally 

 stranded on the ice or on land it is usually pursued and 

 clubbed to death. Boardman said that an Indian killed 

 thirty Loons with clubs in the ice after a freeze.^ The 

 mania for senseless slaughter seems to possess man, savage 

 or civilized. 



Probably the spring shooting of Loons has had something 

 to do with their decrease in numbers. From the middle of 

 April to about the first of June Loons fly eastward and north- 

 ward along our coast. One principal line of their flight is up 



1 Coll. Maaa. Hist. Soo., Vol. II, 2d ser., p. 181. 



2 Brewster, William: Auk, 1888, p. 390. 



s Forest and Stream, 1874, Vol. Ill, p. 291. 



