BOARD OF GAME AND FISII COMMISSIONERS 
75 
From 1875 to 1880, when the writer first began the serious study of birds, 
the vicinity of Minneapolis still presented an abundance of many species of Waders, 
while the western prairies, visited in 1879, abounded in such birds as the Upland 
Plover, Marbled Godwit, Willet and others that are now little more than tradi¬ 
tions in those parts. The Avocet and the great “Sickle-bill” or Long-billed Curlew 
had even then nearly disappeared from the state. Since that time the dense flocks 
of Golden Plover and the myriads of other migrating Shore Birds that tarried to 
feed, spring and autumn, have been reduced to straggling parties that are but 
pitiful reminders of the former flights, which wasted away with a rapidity that no 
one thought possible. 
The cause of all this destruction has been primarily the widespread and 
fearful slaughter to which they have been subjected by thoughtless sportsmen and 
ruthless market hunters. Big and little, they have always and everywhere been 
regarded as game birds and legitimate objects of sport. The habits of many 
species made them an easy prey as they flew in compact flocks, decoyed readily, 
or, as in the case of the Woodcock, lay well to a dog. Depositing few eggs and 
being exposed to many dangers in infancy and during their long migrations, 
they could not withstand the great inroads made in their numbers by the gunners 
of former days. Another cause of their decrease, more unavoidable than the 
last, has been the steady advance of agriculture, appropriating the nesting grounds 
of such species as bred on the uplands in temperate climes. The draining of 
marshes, sloughs and shallow lakes has also played no inconsiderable part. In 
1900 and 1901 many Shore Birds, notably the Marbled Godwit, were breeding or 
spending the summer in the Mud Lake region in eastern Marshall County, but the 
great drainage canal that now traverses that area took from them their last ex¬ 
tensive dwelling place in this state and they are gone never to return. 
The great diminution in the number of Shore Birds is a serious loss to the state 
in more ways than one. They are liable to be looked on only as food and objects 
of pursuit, but in reality this is entirely secondary to the incalculable service they 
render, or rather, did render, in keeping in check insects detrimental to the inter¬ 
ests of man. The work done by the Biological Survey at Washington, by Aughey 
of Nebraska, and others, in examining the stomach contents of practically all species 
of this group, shows that they live almost entirely upon insects and conspicuous 
among these are many kinds that are especially injurious to agriculture. To 
appreciate the great good that they did when abundant, it is necessary only to 
state that many of the stomachs examined were packed with such insect pests 
as locusts, grasshoppers, wire-worms, adults and larvae of horse flies, crane flies, 
army worms, cut-worms, many kinds of caterpillars, white grubs, weevils, bill- 
bugs, click beetles, squash bugs, cucumber beetles, cabbage worms, and last, but 
perhaps not least, mosquitoes and their “wigglers” in great quantities. McAtee 
of the United States Biological Survey, says: “The economic record of the shore 
birds deserves nothing but praise. These birds injure no crops, hut on the con¬ 
trary, feed upon many of the worst enemies of agriculture.” “Nor must we forget 
the more personal debt of gratitude we owe them for preying upon mosquitoes. 
They are the most important bird enemies of these pests known to us.” “They 
should be protected first, to save them from the danger of extermination, and, 
second, because of their economic importance. So great, indeed, is their economic 
value, that their retention in the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a 
serious loss to agriculture.” 
