532 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



The prairie regions of central Canada, including large por- 

 tions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, join the north- 

 eastern part of Montana, the northern half of North Dakota 

 and the northwestern corner of Minnesota, all of which once 

 was a paradise for water-fowl. At the close of the war of the 

 rebellion this great region, two hundred miles wide by over 

 four hundred miles in length, with its countless lakes, ponds, 

 streams and marshes, was one great breeding colony of wild- 

 fowl, where hundreds of thousands reared their young in se- 

 curity, almost unmolested by man. From this great colony 

 the various species extended their breeding grounds in lesser 

 numbers as far as South Dakota, southern Wisconsin, the 

 Kankakee marshes of Illinois and Indiana, parts of south- 

 western Minnesota and the lakes of north-central Iowa. "In 

 1864," says Prof. W. W. Cooke, referring to southern Wiscon- 

 sin, "every pond hole and every damp depression had its 

 brood of young ducks." ^ Within the next fifteen years the 

 farmers changed from grain raising to dairying. The marshes 

 were drained and the breeding grounds for wild-fowl were 

 gone. The birds disappeared with them. Regions in Illinois, 

 Iowa and Minnesota, where a dozen or more species of duck 

 commonly bred as late as 1885, were almost deserted by them 

 in the year 1906. The great "duck paradise" was invaded 

 by the railroads. The Northern Pacific cut across it in Min- 

 nesota and North Dakota. A line was built north to Winni- 

 peg; other branches were built later, and the Canadian Pacific 

 was pushed forward from Winnipeg to the Pacific, crossing 

 the most extensive breeding grounds of wild-fowl on the 

 continent. 



From 1880 to 1900 the population of the States and Prov- 

 inces crossed by these railroads increased many-fold. When 

 in 1888 I passed through this vast region, via the Canadian 

 Pacific, many of the great duck grounds near the railroad 

 had become wheat fields, and most of the wild-fowl were gone. 

 Trainloads of immigrants were coming continually. Since 

 that time a flood of immigration from the United States has 

 augmented that from the Old World. The agricultural ex- 



■ Cooke, W. W., U. S. Dept. of Agr., Biol. Surv., Bull. No. 26, 1906, p. 11. 



