Decrease of Birds m Mass. J. A. Allen 
In all the early notices of the natural productions of New 
England, the Crane is mentioned among the few birds usually 
enumerated. Emmons gives the Whooping Crane (Grits america- 
nws) in his list of the birds of Massachusetts, but subsequent 
writers have generally believed without due authority, and of late 
it has been wholly lost sight of as a bird of the State. That 
some species of Crane, and in all probability both species, was 
common in New England in early times, is beyond question. Both 
the Sandhill and the Whooping Cranes have still a wide range in 
the interior, passing northward in summer far beyond New Eng- 
land. Neither species has of late been met with north of New 
Jersey, where the Whooping Crane occurs only as a rare casual 
visitor. Morton wrote, of “ Cranes, there are greate store, that ever 
more came there at S. Davids day, and not before ; that day they 
never would misse. These doe sometimes eate our corne, and do 
pay for their presumption well enough ; and serveth there in pow- 
ther, with turnips to supply the place of powthered beefe, and is 
a goodly bird in a dish, and no discommodity.”* This shows that 
the Crane, and not a Heron, is the bird to which reference is made. 
* New English Canaan, p. 69. 
Bull, N, O.O, I, Sept, 1870 . p, 
654. The Whooping Crane. By Picket. Ibid., No. 21, p. 407— An in 
te resting account of its habits. E'er, <Sj Stream. Vdl. XXf 
