GAME AND ITS PKOTECTION. 19 



bring up the rear. From July, when the yellow- 

 legs and dowitchers abound ; throughout August, in 

 which month the larger bay-birds are continuously 

 streaming by; during September, when the English 

 snipe are on the meadows and the wood-ducks in the 

 lily-pad marshes of the fresh- water lakes ; in Octo- 

 ber, when the teal and blue-bills are abundant in the 

 great west; all through the fall and into winter, 

 Avhen the geese and canvas-backs arrive, the bay- 

 man finds his sport in perfection. 



Many of the upland birds are disappearing ; the 

 quail is being killed with merciless energy, and his 

 loved haunts of dense brush are cleared away from 

 year to year ; the woodcock can hardly rest in peace 

 long enough to rear her young, and finds many of 

 her favorite secluded spots drained by the enterpris- 

 ing farmer ; the rufied grouse disappears with the 

 receding forest, and the prairie chicken with the 

 cultivation of the open land. But although innu- 

 merable ducks, snipe, and plovers are killed every 

 season, and by unjustifiable measures are driven 

 from certain localities, their vast flights throughout 

 the whole country — amounting to myriads in the 

 west — are apparently as innumerable as ever. 



From the first of August to the last of December 

 they stretch athwart .the sky from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific ; and although in localities they may 

 appear scarce, still constitute countless hosts. "Were 

 it possible to stand on some peak of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and take in at a glance the vast stretch 

 of heavens from ocean to ocean, with the moving 



