372 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



Until recent years we have filled the places of the birds thus 

 extirpated by introducing others from the south. People who 

 have watched the result say that these southern birds cannot 

 survive severe northern winters, but that if they are intro- 

 duced in spring and breed successfully, their young are more 

 hardy than the parents, and do well if the succeeding winter 

 is not too severe. It is believed that the many southern birds 

 introduced have so interbred with the few native birds left 

 as to produce a smaller and less hardy race than the northern 

 Bob-white, — one which cannot withstand so well a severe 

 winter. Most of them die during a hard winter when the snow 

 is deep, even if they are not frozen under. 



In 1898 the destruction of most of the Quail from New 

 Hampshire to Cape Cod was reported. Afterward they in- 

 creased somewhat, but the very severe winter of 1904-05 

 destroyed fully ninety per cent, of the birds throughout the 

 State; two hard winters followed, and the gunning which 

 was allowed in those years exterminated the birds in many 

 localities. Many sportsmen stopped shooting them during 

 the succeeding years; but others continued to kill every bird 

 that could be found. This and the impossibility of pro- 

 curing birds from other States, which has put an end to the 

 practice of restocking with southern birds, accounts for the 

 extermination of the species in large areas where it was once 

 common. There must have been a section on Cape Cod where 

 the winter of 1904-05 was not so destructive as elsewhere, for 

 Mr. George H. Tripp writes that about West Harwich the 

 season of 1906 was the best that he ever saw for Quail, and 

 several correspondents from the lower end of the Cape note a 

 large increase. Mr. Fred F. Dill of North Eastham attributes 

 this to mild winters and the fact that the foxes were killed off. 

 Two hundred and thirty-two of my correspondents reported 

 in 1908 that the Bob-white had decreased in numbers in the 

 years of their experience, but twenty-six, mainly from south- 

 eastern Massachusetts, recorded an increase. 



Snow and cold are important factors in the destruction of 

 the Bob-white in the north. Given mild winters, a very short 

 open season and the prohibition of sale and shipment, with 



