13 
The Decrease of Birds in Past Centuries. 
The great auk soon disappeared. The great cranes, both 
brown and white, birds of the open country, were anni- 
hilated by the settler’s rifle. The Canada goose, which was 
once found in the State throughout the year, and probably 
bred about the inland ponds and marshes, was driven out, 
and became a mere migrant in spring and fall. The wild 
turkey was hunted away to the deep woods, remote from 
settlements, and the pinnated grouse or heath hen was gradu- 
ally depleted in numbers ; but geese, ducks, shore birds, pas- 
senger pigeons and ruffed grouse still existed in abundance 
until the early part of the nineteenth century. 
An old gentleman named Greenwood, a trustworthy man, 
who was once keeper of the Ipswich light, told me in 1876 
that in the early part of the century (I have no memoran- 
dum of the date) he, with his father and brothers, had to 
get oxen and sled to haul home the birds, mainly geese and 
ducks, which they had killed in one day about Thanksgiving 
time near the mouth of the Ipswich River. 
Dwight tells us, in 18 2 1, 1 that there were then hardly any 
wild animals remaining besides a few small species; that 
wild turkeys had greatly lessened in numbers, and in the 
most populous parts of the country were not very often seen ; 
that grouse were not common, but that water fowl still ex- 
isted in great abundance. 
This brief glance at two centuries of the history of Mas- 
sachusetts game birds and their destruction brings us to a 
time within the memory of a few persons now living, and 
almost within the scope of the present inquiry. 
In the first volume of the “ Memorial History of Boston,” 
published in 1880, Dr. J. A. Allen, one of the most emi- 
nent of American naturalists, writes of the birds of eastern 
Massachusetts as follows : “ The great auk, the Labrador 
duck, and five or six other species, have long since disap- 
peared from southern Hew England. All the larger species 
1 Dwight’s “Travels in New England and New York,” 1821, Vol. I., pp. 52-55. 
The grouse spoken of here is probably the heath hen, as Dwight and other writers men- 
tion this bird as the grouse or pheasant, — a bird distinct from the partridge, or ruffed 
grouse, and never as com m on. 
