Penobscot Bay, Maine.
1896
July 12
(no 3)
vain. Just as they were abandoning it the children started
a pair of Red-breasted Snipe which alighted together on the
beach. Our gunners, quite regardless of the fact that these birds
are protected by law for six weeks to come, crept up to them
and both firing together killed the pair - or rather killed one
& mortally wounded the other for when at least fifteen minutes
later I examined the birds I found one of them still alive
and palpitating with pain & fear. With the grudging assent of its
captor I soon put it out of its misery.
  Having now exhausted their chances of getting anything which they
could put to the slightest use these men [delete]now[/delete] separated and
squatting down in the grass began shooting at the Terns. But
after bringing down one wounded bird and missing or slightly wounding
several others they became alarmed either at the way we watched
them or, perhaps, at a hint from the owner of the island
with whom we remonstrated warmly - but apparently ineffectually -
and getting into their boat rowed across the channel to
Ship Island over which a perfect cloud of Terns were hovering.
Soon after they landed they began firing rapidly keeping it up
almost without cessation for the next two hours. Conary &
Watrous finally crossed to this island and put a stop to
the slaughter by hinting that I was a game warden who
had come to these islands to look after the birds. This so
alarmed the murderers that they at once crossed the channel
and gathering their children together embarked on the sloop
& set sail for home. Conary said that he found many dead &
wounded Terns floating on the water in the channel. I myself
through the glass saw others drifting out to sea with little
knots of their comrades hovering over them. On the island itself
dead or wounded birds lay scattered about wherever one
chose to look for them. We found & killed several of those wounded