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highly poisonous to certain species of Ducks that flock to them from 
neighbouring drying sloughs and pools, and they perish by hundreds and 
are washed up in windrows along the shores. The preliminary illness is 
not contagious and birds if not too far gone when given pure water make 
rapid recovery. Another and similar disaster occasionally occurs. When, 
in a specially dry season, large slough areas dry up late in summer, we find 
them thronged with young Ducks not yet able to fly, or with old ones in 
flightless moult. These, neither able to leave the locality nor to find food 
in it, also perish. No practical preventive has yet been proposed. 
Over a course of years many hundreds of thousands of birds have 
perished in this manner on the continent, for the condition is not peculiar 
to Canada. 
Economic Status. The Anseres form, economically, one of the most 
important orders of birds; not, as is the case with other birds, so much on 
account of their food habits — these being largely of negative influence in 
human affairs — as in other ways. In the early days of settlement of the 
country Ducks and Geese furnished a most important food supply to the 
struggling inhabitants and even now the total number annually killed by 
sportsmen is an impressive addition to our food resources. Undoubtedly, 
the greatest usefulness of these birds is as a source of healthy, wholesome 
recreation, lending attraction to the outdoors and assisting in the upbuild- 
ing of a strong virile race, familiar with field life and the use of firearms — 
qualities of no mean importance to any nation in time of need. 
Of the great flocks of wild fowl that formerly frequented the marshes 
of the East, only a shadow remains. Those of the West, too, were fast 
becoming depleted, and to the older prairie residents the number of 
waterfowl today, though still the envy of the eastern sportsman, is sadly 
reduced. The causes of this are various, some unavoidable, though others 
may be controlled. Contrary to a very general impression, the great 
breeding stronghold of wild waterfowl is not a great, vague, far north, but 
on the lakes and sloughs of our prairies in the midst of what is now settled 
cultivation. We cannot expect that vast acreages can be brought under 
cultivation without some reduction of wild life, nor that the temptation of 
an easy food Bupply right at the door could always be resisted by the early 
settlers when meat was scarce, and game laws, if any, difficult of enforce- 
ment. The draining of sloughs and marshes has also progressively restricted 
the breeding and feeding area of many of these birds — a word of caution 
in this direction has already been given under the heading of Franklins’ 
Gull, page 60. 
Even on grounds suitable only for grazing, the new conditions have 
seriously affected the breeding of various species. Cattle crop close 
around the margins of sloughs, and often the nests that escape the trampling 
of feeding herds are exposed to the eyes of natural enemies. Haying, when 
extended close to poob, although carried on too late in the season to disturb 
the current nestings, destroys the cover for early use next season. Leaving 
a belt of growth about the ponds is only a partial precaution as it crowds 
the nesting life into narrow belts, conspicuous in the mown meadows 
and tilled fields, and makes an easy hunting ground for predaceous crow, 
fox, coyote, cat, or dog. Among the natural enemies, undoubtedly the 
Crow ranks high. Accounts indicate that these birds of ill repute have 
increased enormously since the first settlement of the country, and experi- 
ence shows that under present conditions they work havoc with the eggs 
