27 
“ locally restricted.” Hawks and owls have been driven off, 
he says, by the removal of their nesting sites. This was very 
evident after the coal strike in the spring of 1902, when much 
wood was cut. A law passed by the Legislature, offering a 
bounty on hawks, owls and crows, also has had some effect. 
Mr. Abbot H. Thayer of Monadnock, H. II., writes : 
“ Ever since Hornaday’s announcement I have done my best 
to know the truth about this region. How, nearly fifty years 
later than when I first knew Keene, H. H., every wet spot 
has the same red-winged blackbirds, . . . every mowing its 
bobolinks, and all the village birds are as abundant in a gen- 
eral way as forty-eight years ago. ... I believe that the 
only species that have suffered any significant change are 
the passenger pigeon, upland plover and wood duck ; also the 
ruffed grouse and the bobolink (as I am told, not as I notice 
here).” The upland plover he regards as nearing extinction, 
and the purple martin as occupying fewer bird houses than 
formerly. 
Dr. G. H. Perkins of the University of Vermont, ento- 
mologist of the Vermont State Experiment Station, Burling- 
ton, writes : “I think, on the contrary, many birds are in- 
creasing. Birds are well protected, and I think few are 
intentionally killed in the State. I should say there has been 
no decrease, as a whole. Going back fifty years, if accounts 
are to be trusted, the wild pigeon and some others were more 
abundant than of late. Swallows, swifts, song sparrows, 
robins, bluebirds, redstarts, vireos, white-crowned sparrows, 
bobolinks, many warblers, meadowlarks, downy and hairy 
woodpeckers and creepers do not seem to decrease, if not in- 
creasing.” 
Mrs. Elizabeth B. Davenport of Brattleboro, Vt., says that 
birds are not decreasing, as a whole. Grouse are reported 
less in number, the martins are decimated and the house 
wrens are sadly decreasing. 
It is fair to conclude, from all the foregoing, that with 
the smaller species the natural balance of bird life is now 
fairly constant in Massachusetts and the neighboring States, 
and that the decrease will be found mainly among those 
species that are most hunted. 
