DISTRIBUTION AM) MIGRATION OF NORTH AMERICAS 
DICKS. GEESE, AND SWANS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Wild fowl are distributed over the whole world. From time imme- 
morial ducks, geese, and swans have been held in high esteem by 
mankind, and everywhere they have been eagerl} r pursued for sport 
or for food. 
Passing by the purely esthetic value of the birds a^ beautiful and 
welcome denizens of our waters and as lending the charm of life and 
animation to our otherwise desolate ponds and lakes; passing by, too, 
their importance to thousands of men who are lured from business 
cares to pursue them and who derive from their pursuit both health 
and pleasure, their economic value and importance as food are very 
great. The flesh not only is palatable and nutritious, but is so different 
from that of domestic fowls as to form a most welcome addition to the 
table both of the rich and the poor. 
The flesh of wild fowl constituted an important item in the larder of 
the aborigines of this country, who, by means of the bow and arrow 
and by the use of various devices in the shape of nets and traps. 
succeeded in obtaining them in considerable numbers, especially when 
young and unable to fly. The Eskimo and northern Indians, indeed, 
would fare badly but for the vast numbers of waterfowl that visit 
their country to breed, and everywhere the aborigines seek their 
coos with avidity. Waterfowl as an addition to the larder became 
almost as essential to the first settlers as they had been to the Indians, 
and, so far as game was concerned, the fowling piece soon became a 
more important part of the settler's equipment than the rifle. 
Neither the aborigines nor the early settlers appreciably reduced the 
numbers of the hordes of ducks and geese that periodically covered 
the lakes, ponds, rivers, and marshes of this favored country. It 
was not until comparatively recent times, indeed, that tin 1 tremendous 
increase of population and the constantly increasing Dumber both of 
sportsmen and of market gunners, together with the invention o( that 
potent engine of destruction, the breech-loading gun, have had their 
logical effect in greatly diminishing their numbers and in practically 
exterminating not a few species. 
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