BULLETIN NUMBER FIVE 
207 
CHRONOLOGY. 
New York gave the Heath Hen its first protection, in 
1708 and 1785. 
New Jersey began to protect it in 1820. 
Massachusetts finally woke up in 1831; and in 1837 gave 
it a 4-year close season. 
Rhode Island came in in 1846. 
New Jersey gave her dead birds a 5-year close season 
in 1865. 
Massachusetts tried again in 1870, with a 6-year close 
season, hoping to bring it back. The Town of Tisbury, 
Martha’s Vineyard, the last stronghold of the species in 
Massachusetts, backed and filled with short and long close 
seasons, and none at all, from 1842 until 1907, when the 
State established the State Heath Hen reservation,—with 
a stock of 21 birds! 
In 1907, the Heath Hen species was totally extinct, ev¬ 
erywhere, save for the 21 birds on Martha’s Vineyard. Dr. 
George W. Field (then Massachusetts State Game Commis¬ 
sioner), Messrs. William Brewster and John E. Thayer are 
entitled to the credit of thus far having saved the species 
from total extermination by the protection of the last 
colony. 
By 1909 the Heath Hens had increased to about 200 birds. 
In 1915 the total number was believed to be in the neigh¬ 
borhood of 2,000. 
In 1916 a destructive prairie fire swept over the 2,000- 
acre heath-hen sanctuary and burned all the Heath Hens 
save a very few! As yet no one knows the exact number 
of the survivors, but it is a small number. 
I wish that we could lay this lesson before every shooter 
of upland game birds in North America; but that is im¬ 
possible. We will, however, place it before every law-maker 
of the sage-grouse states. 
