200 Tue Birps Asout Us. 
‘having discharged their harquebus-shot, such a flock of Cranes (the 
most part white) arose, with such a crye, redoubled by many ecchoes, 
as if an armie of men had showted together.’ The Brown or Sand- 
hill Crane has not been seen in this region for many years past, 
although it is still not uncommon in the West. The learned Pro- 
fessor Kalm, who travelled in this country in 1748-49, and resided 
some time at Swedesborough, New Jersey, noticed this bird on its 
northern flight about the middle of February. At that time they 
usually alighted, but remained for a short time only, every spring, in 
comparatively limited numbers; but he was assured by a colonist, 
above ninety years of age, that in his youth (or about the year 1670) 
Cranes came in hundreds. The Rough-billed Pelican was also 
frequent on the Hudson and the Delaware, but is now a very rare 
visitant to the last-mentioned river only. 
“ While ornithologists, however, have to deplore the diminution 
in the number of the more conspicuous birds which has taken place 
during the last century, it is gratifying to find a very sensible increase 
in the number of other species. Many of the Warblers, for example, 
then considered rare, are now found to be abundant,—a beneficial 
increase, for which we are no doubt indebted to the fact of our effi- 
cient game-laws providing for the protection of insectivorous birds. 
But, on the other hand, the constant shooting of ‘ Bay Snipe’ and 
shore birds generally by market gunners, always on the watch for 
their arrival, has seriously reduced the flocks of many species formerly 
known to abound in districts now but thinly peopled by this interest- 
ing class. The late Mr. George Ord assured the writer that, during 
his excursions to the coast with Wilson, the distinguished ornitholo- 
gist, the Avocet, Stilt, and other Waders which are becoming rare in 
our day were then quite plentiful, so that there is every reason to 
fear that in the course of a few years more they also may disappear. 
“In Chesapeake Bay, the winter resort of a great variety of wild 
fowl, birds, although still numerous, are, through the same influences, 
becoming every year less abundant, and unless the present reprehen- 
sible and most destructive system of shooting—wholesale slaughter 
it may with propriety be called—be rigidly put down [it since has 
been], the decrease will, in all likelihood, become permanent, to the 
great regret of every true-minded naturalist. We have but to look 
into the history of some of the birds of the British Islands as a 
warning against the continuance of the destroying influences to 
which many of those of our own country are now subjected. Dur- 
