GAME-BIEDS 245 



journey southward, only to forget their experience 

 before an hour has passed and plunge eagerly into 

 the decoys at the next blind they come to. 



It is not difficult, then, to understand why, in 

 the days of unlimited game-bags, shorebirds lost 

 the number of their mess. The tiny sandpipers, 

 too small to shoot singly, could be mowed down by 

 the score at a shot. The little surf sanderlings 

 succumbed in the same manner, a hundred or two 

 hundred constituting a day's shoot for one gun. 

 Willets and curlew, because of their large size, 

 were specially sought after, and some species met 

 total extirpation. Eobin-snipe (knots) were stu- 

 pid enough not to be frightened by gun-fire and 

 became virtually extinct ten years ago. Yellow- 

 legs, blaok-breagted plover, and glolden plover 

 alone retain some semblance of their former num- 

 bers, but these have been woefully reduced. 



Among the hills and valleys, on pastures and 

 hay-fields, the upland plover met a like fate. The 

 Bartramian sandpiper proved a warier bird than 

 his brethren of the shore, but he finally fell victim 

 to the gun in the hands of the farmer 's boy. Kill- 

 deer still live, a remnant of their former strength, 

 and at last are protected everywhere. 



But, like the water-fowl, shorebirds, although 

 their numbers were once brought to a low ebb by 

 market gunners and over-ambitious sportsmen, 

 are showing signs of recovery. The Federal 

 Government rigidly protects them. Two species 



