INTRODUCTION. 19 



appear to move as they rushed about in search of the insects 

 that formed their principal food.^ 



King (1866) says that one of the pecuHarities of Lakes Erie 

 and Ontario consists of the great numbers of Sandpipers run- 

 ning along the beach in large flocks.^ 



Great bags of shore birds were made on the Atlantic coast, 

 even as late as the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 



Giraud speaks of one hundred and sixteen Yellow-legs 

 killed at one shot. 



Wilson tells of eighty-five Red-breasted Snipe taken at one 

 discharge of the musket, and Audubon saw one hundred and 

 twenty-seven killed by three barrels. 



A gunner at Egg Harbor killed thirty-three Red-breasted 

 Snipe by shooting both barrels into a passing flock; and Frank 

 Forester says that in his day a sportsman might fill a bushel 

 basket with the proceeds of a day's shooting on beaches and 

 marshes. 



Lewis states that he saw twenty-three Dowitchers killed 

 at one discharge. 



Bogardus mentions that he, with a friend, killed three 

 hundred and forty Wilson's Snipe in a day on the Sangamon 

 River in Illinois, and says that his bag in the right season was 

 seldom as small as one hundred and fifty birds in a day. 



Huntington states that on one occasion, in Ohio, he killed 

 twenty-eight Wilson's Snipe in a little over an hour's shoot- 

 ing.^ 



There is a story current among old gunners in Concord, 

 Mass., that years ago one man won a wager that he could 

 kill fifty Wilson's Snipe in an hour or two with a limited 

 number of shots. 



Gillmore says that in his day, within thirty-six hours' 

 travel of New York City, such Snipe shooting could be 

 enjoyed as was to be had in no other portion of the globe. 

 One of his acquaintances killed nine dozen in seven hours, 

 and frequently killed from seven to eight dozen in the same 

 time. 



1 Gillmore, Parker: Prairie and Forest, 1874, p. 250. 



- King, W. Ross: Tlie Sportsman and Nattiralist in Canada, 1866, p. 114. 



' Huntington, Dwiglit W.: Our Feathered Game, 1903, p. 273. 



