Return of Birds and Spring Shooting. 
Springtime is at hand. Even as these lines are 
written the surging tide of bird-life comes up 
from Central and South America, Mexico and 
the Antilles, flooding the South with bird-song. 
Robins, bluebirds, blackbirds and song-spar¬ 
rows have returned in numbers to favored re¬ 
gions in the New England States. The wildfowl 
are leaving the shores of Florida, Georgia and 
the Carolinas. Down in Currituck Sound they 
have been mating since February, and now are 
pushing north along our coasts, only awaiting 
the breaking up of the ice in the ponds and 
rivers to seek their nesting grounds in the in¬ 
terior or in the far North. In several of the 
States through which they must pass, spring 
shooting is still legal, and large numbers of 
mated birds are shot while moving northward 
to their nesting haunts. Flying from the de¬ 
struction which always awaits them in the South 
they receive a sorry welcome when they turn 
northward. New Jersey, Rhode Island and 
Massachusetts gunners, who can legally shoot 
ducks in spring, give the birds little rest. The 
sadly diminished snipe, sandpipers, plover and 
other shore and marsh birds have suffered from 
this spring shooting even more than the wild 
fowl. My own experience goes back only about 
forty years, but even within that time I have 
seen seven species practically extirpated from 
the East, and many others are steadily dwindling 
in numbers. From Maine to Florida along the 
Atlantic seaboard the destruction of birds has 
gone on, and it is only recently that the people 
of some of the coast States have begun to real¬ 
ize the decrease of the birds and to attempt to 
protect them. Already it is too late to save some 
species. 
Forty years ago the flamingoes marshalled 
their scarlet lines along the Florida Keys. The 
spoonbills flashed their roseate plumage in the 
sunlight, and great flights of snowy egrets and 
flocks of parrakeets enlivened the swamps, la¬ 
goons and everglades. Now all are either gone 
or so rare that their skins are sought as speci¬ 
mens for museums. Within forty years multi¬ 
tudes of Eskimo curlews and golden plover 
swept southward down the coasts of two conti¬ 
nents from the Arctic Circle to Brazil and Pata¬ 
gonia. Then turning back through the interior 
in the spring they reached their northern breed¬ 
ing grounds. The flights of curlews and plover 
within this period have been so great on Cape 
Cod and Nantucket that the markets were glutted 
with the birds. 
In the early seventies Eskimo curlews or 
dough birds, as they were called, could be bought 
for six cents apiece from the boys of Nantucket. 
So far as I can learn less than a dozen authen¬ 
tic records of the taking of this bird in North 
America have been made since the twentieth cen¬ 
tury began. Ornithologists now believe that its 
total extinction is at hand. Still, no law was 
ever made to check its slaughter on the Atlantic 
coast. The pot-hunter and the gourmand have 
had free hand and the bird was wiped out. 
The golden plover has been in danger of shar¬ 
ing the same fate. It has no protection on the 
Atlantic coast of the United States and it was 
nearly eliminated from the East by spring shoot¬ 
ing in the Mississippi Valley and fall shooting on 
the coast; but since laws protecting it in spring 
have been enacted in some of the States of the 
interior, a slight increase in numbers is noted 
here. 
The long-billed curlew is nearly gone from the 
East. Forty years ago it was abundant in the 
Carolinas, Georgia and Florida in winter. Now 
it is almost never seen in New England. The 
Hudsonian or j ack curlew, now very shy, is the 
only representative of these birds now often 
seen on our coast.. Sixty years ago the two spe¬ 
cies of godwit known to the gunners as marlins 
or goose birds, visited the New England coasts 
in great numbers. Now they are nearly all gone. 
The willet nested along the coast of New Eng¬ 
land and migrated in enormous flights. Sixty 
years ago they were abundant. Twenty years ago 
a few were seen each year. Now only an oc¬ 
casional straggler is taken. The species has been 
practically exterminated in the East by unre¬ 
stricted shooting in spring, summer and fall. 
The redbreasted sandpiper or knot, which used 
to visit New England in “clouds,” has fallen off 
in numbers about 98 per cent., and the red¬ 
breasted snipe or dowitcher has decreased nearly 
as much. Birds of the open field—native nesting 
species like the upland plover and the kildeer— 
are nearing extermination. As the spring ad¬ 
vances few except the yellow-legs, the black- 
bellied plover or beetlehead and the smaller 
shore birds are now seen along our coasts. 
These birds can no longer be killed legally in 
spring in New York, Connecticut, Massachu¬ 
setts or New Hampshire, and this spring shoot¬ 
ing prohibition has served to check their de¬ 
struction. But in Rhode Island there is yet no 
law to prevent the killing in spring of even those 
that normally nest there. 
Numbers of winter yellow-legs were shot by 
gunners last spring in Rhode Island, and some 
of the female birds were found to have eggs in 
their ovaries. Game birds are now decreasing 
so fast in the United States that extermination 
will progress with increasing rapidity unless all 
shooting is prohibited except during a short open 
season in the fall. 
Edward Howe Forbush, 
New England Agent for the National Association oi 
Audubon Societies. 
Virginia’s New Non-Sale Law. 
Warrenton, Va., April 7 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Our Legislature, soon to adjourn, has 
so amended our game law as to make it read, 
“It shall be unlawful to buy or offer for sale 
or sell at any time any robins, grouse, pheasants, 
quail or partridges or woodcock.” No one act 
could have done more to protect our fast dis¬ 
appearing game, and as a lover of sport I am 
glad. For years I have been advocating just 
such a law. Now let us see to it that it is en¬ 
forced. C. M. White. 
Conditions of Wild Life in Alaska.* 
Concluded from page 574. 
BY MADISON GRANT. 
Wolves are abundant in Vancouver Island 
and throughout the interior. In the north 
around the region drained by the Porcupine 
River they assume very large dimensions, some 
skins measuring nearly six feet from nose ro 
tip of tail, and a large percentage of these wolves 
are black. Coyotes have pushed north from 
the American boundary as far as White Horse 
at the headwaters of the Yukon River. 
Red, cross, silver and black foxes occur in 
the interior. The two latter command enormous 
prices, in some cases as high as $1,000 for one 
skin. These animals are being killed off by the 
use of poison in the hands of white men, and 
many more are destroyed than recovered. The 
natives are afraid to use poison owing to sev¬ 
eral tragedies which have occurred from its 
careless handling. 
Along the Arctic and Bering Sea coast white 
foxes abound and blue foxes are found from 
the mouth of the Yukon River southward, their 
center of abundance being Nelson Island, in 
Bering Sea, near the mouth of the Kuskowin 
River. 
Bears are extremely abundant in Alaska, es¬ 
pecially on the Pacific Coast. Their great num¬ 
bers are probably due to the fact that they have 
an abundant food supply in the great schools of 
salmon that ascend the rivers. Before the 
arrival of the salmon these bears, like the 
grizzlies of our own Rockies, feed on spermo- 
philes and grass. During the salmon season 
they are easily found and killed by hunters, and 
as this occurs during the summer season, their 
fur is of very little value. The period of the 
salmon run; in fact, the entire summer should 
be made a closed season for bears, throughout 
this district. Owing to the recent fall in the 
price of bear skins, these splendid animals 
have been hunted rather less than formerly. 
•The black bears occur on Vancouver and 
Queen Charlotte Islands, but as far as I know, 
do not occur in any of the large islands north. 
They are, however, found along the mainland 
of the southeastern coast, and found every¬ 
where throughout the interior in the timbered 
region. The blue or glacier bear is found 
rarely around the glaciers of the Mt. St. Elias 
region. 
The grizzly occurs in considerable numbers 
along the mainland of the coast as far north as 
Skagway, and is found in relatively small 
numbers throughout the interior. There are 
very few grizzly bears on the Seward Peninsula, 
and I was unable to get any skulls or to obtain 
any definite data concerning them. This bear 
may prove an interesting type if a sufficient 
series of specimens could be obtained. 
There is a huge bear found on the large 
islands around Juneau and Sitka which has been 
described as a separate species, and its num- 
*A paper read at the annual meeting of the Boone and 
Crockett Club, by its Secretary. 
