The noisy, chattering Carolina parroquet-the sole representative in the United States of the large and interesting order to which it belongs which in early times ranged over most of the eastern half of the United States, from the Lake States southward, and was abundant from the Ohio Valley and Maryland southward to the Gulf, will soon doubtless be numbered among the totally extinct birds of the United States. Its destructive proclivities certainly rendered it somewhat obnoxious wherever it was abundant, and formed one of the chief causes that led to its rapid restriction. From the novelty of its form, plumage and habits, it has ever had to run the gauntlet of numberless shot-guns wherever it has been a casual visitor. At present it is hardly anywhere abundant, and is frequent only over portions of the South Atlantic and Gulf States.

The pileated woodpecker (Hylotomus pileatus), or log-cock of the woodsman, was formerly a numerous inhabitant of the forests of the United States, from Maine to Florida and Texas. The destruction of the forests began quite early to affect its range, and for many years its harsh notes and loud tapping have been heard only in the most unsettled parts of the States east of the Mississippi, it being already nearly or quite extinct over two-thirds of the area it formerly inhabited east of the Mississippi River. Most other species of the woodpecker family are doubtless far less numerous then formerly, owing mainly to the deforestation of the country. One species, however, the well-known red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) has almost entirely disappeared from portions of its former habitat. Formerly as abundant in New England as it now is in the Middle and Western States, it has, in comparatively recent times, nearly abandoned all of the country east of the Hudson River.

None of the swimming and wading birds, except the great auk, have as yet become wholly extinct, but all have become greatly reduced in numbers, the greater part probably being not a hundredth part as numerous now as when the country was first visited by Europeans. During the seventeenth century, the sand-hill crane, and probably also the whooping crane, were common species all along the Atlantic coast eastward to Maine, though for the last hundred years they have been rarely met with on the Atlantic slope north of North Carolina, and are of rather rare occurrence now between the Ohio river and the Great Lakes. They have, in fact, never been recognized as birds of the New England fauna, and appear in the

local lists of the birds of the Atlantic States, north of Georgia, only as occasional or accidental visitors. Captain Philip Amadas, however, speaks of meeting, in 1584, with immense flocks of tl ese birds. on "Wokokon" Island, on the coast of " Virginia." He says that his party having discharged their "harquebuz-shot, such a flocke of Cranes (the most part white) arose under us, with such a cry, redoubled by many ecchoes, as if an armie of men had showted all together." The crane also figures in most of the early accounts of the natural productions of the Atlantic coast region from Virginia northward. Thomas Morton speaks of their abundance in Massachusetts as late as 1630. Of "Cranes," he says, "there are greate store, that ever more came at S. David's day, and not before: that day they never misse. These sometimes eate our corne, and doe pay for their presumption well enough; and serveth there in powther, with turnips to supply the place of powthered beefe, and is a goodly bird in a dishe, and no discommodity."

The swan is also mentioned by the same writer as a bird of New England, although its occurrence there is almost unrecognized in the annals of ornithology. He says, in his enumeration of the birds: "And first of the Swanne, because shee is the biggest of all the fowles of that Country. There are of them in Merrimack River, and in other parts of the country, greate store at the seasons of the yeare. The flesh is not much desired of the inhabitants, but the skinnes may be accompted a commodity, fitt for divers uses, both for fethers, and quiles." The swan is also mentioned by other early writers as a common bird of the whole Atlantic coast, although for many years few have been seen north of New Jersey, and it has, in comparatively recent years, greatly declined in abundance throughout the region south of the Great Lakes.

The white pelican is also mentioned by several writers as a former inhabitant of New England, as well as of the region more to the southward, but of late it has occurred north of the Potomac only as a straggler or so called "accidental" visitor; yet from its present known range in the remote interior it seems reasonable to suppose that it may have been formerly a common bird of the Atlantic coast as far north at least as Maine. The snow goose was

2 Hakluyt's Voyages, new edition, vol. III., p. 302.

3 New English Canaan, p. 69.

Ibid. p. 67.

also a common winter visitor southward to the Middle Atlantic States, but is now, even in New England, of rather uncertain occurrence, while the other geese and ducks were so abundant that the early colonists had no trouble in supplying their tables by visiting the nearest pond, river or inlet.

The herons, nearly useless as food, have suffered an immense decrease in number, mostly through very natural causes, but often through wholly reprehensible acts of wantonness. Many have of late been destroyed for their feathers where, in Florida especially, the havoc made with these poor defenseless birds is a subject of painful contemplation and a disgrace to the age. The poor birds are attacked at their breeding grounds, and hundreds are slain in a few hours by single parties, whose only use of them is to secure the beautiful plumes with which nature has unfortunately adorned them. In this way colony after colony is broken up, the greater part of the birds being actually killed on the spot, often leaving nestlings to suffer a lingering death by starvation. The few old birds that survive usually abandon the locality where for generations their progenitors had lived and reared their young undisturbed, only to be attacked at some new point the following year. The effect of the wholesale destruction that for the last few years has prevailed in Florida and other portions of the Gulf States, is already apparent in the rapid decrease there of these beautiful birds. The habit most of the species of herons have of breeding together in communities renders their destruction during nesting time an easy matter, their strong parental affection leading them to be neglectful of their own safety when their young are in danger. Disgraceful and inhuman as the act may seem, many a heronry of the qua bird, or night heron, is annually destroyed in mere wantonness in order that the perpetrator may boast of the "cart load" of birds he shot in a single day.

The terns and gulls that form such graceful objects as they course over our bays and harbors or along the sea-coast, have long been subject to wicked and needless, if not wanton, persecution at nearly all their breeding grounds. Nesting on the ground, in communities, on low, barren, sandy islands, they are readily preyed upon by the people of the vicinity, who as "eggers" regularly visit the islands to rob the poor birds of their eggs. First breaking all the eggs found on the first visit, they afterwards daily frequent the breeding grounds and secure the fresh eggs subsequently laid, leav

ing perhaps a few nests undisturbed toward the close of the season, from which late and probably enfeebled broods are usually reared. This results in a great decrease in numbers among the species so persecuted, and often in their abandonment of favorite breeding grounds for those whose remoteness from man insures them greater security. Some species, as the large herring-gull, have wholly left such exposed breeding grounds, and resort to dense swampy forrests, where they place their nests in trees instead of on the ground; a strange departure from their natural preferences, indicative of a high degree of intelligence. While these are among the changes that have resulted from the increase of population, they are brought about by the needless and reprehensible acts of heartless men, discreditable to any civilized community or age. The results of this needless spoliation add nothing to our general wealth or comfort. The birds thus persecuted are harmless species, whose beautiful forms and graceful evolutions one never tires of watching, and whose destruction should be amenable to severe legal penalties. Unless in some way protected, they must soon cease to be summer residents of our coast.

Reference has already been made to the decrease of all kinds of game birds, but a few words further on this point may not be out of place. In the absence of definite statistics respecting their former abundance, with which to compare their present number, a few historical references may suffice to indicate how great has been the depletion. While the bays and rivers of the Middle States have ever been the great winter resorts of the ducks and geese, these birds were in early times far more numerous at more northern and less favorable localities than they are at the present time at their most populous resort. References to the occurrence of flocks so large as to darken the air, deafening the ears of the observer with the sound of their wings as they rose from the water, are too frequent in the early records to be considered as merely figures of speech. The eastern portion of Massachusetts, from its natural configuration, was never pre-eminently fitted for the resort of waterfowl, yet in the early days of the Plymouth Colony, one writer says that the planters lived during the winter on the roast meat of the native fowls they killed, and that every man had his own duck before him on his trencher. The quaint old Thomas Morton, in speaking of geese, says, "I have often had one thousand before the mouth of my gun," and adds that "the fethers of the Geese that I have killed

in a short time, have paid for all the powther and shott I have spent in a year;" and that he had plenty of ducks and teal in the ponds and rivers about his house. The numerous species of plovers, snipes and sandpipers have undoubtedly decreased proportionately with the ducks and geese. Of these birds, says Morton, referring to them as "sanderlings," "I was much delighted to feede on them, because they were fatt, and easie to come by, because I went but a step or two for them; and I have killed betweene foure and five dozen at a shoot, which would load me home." Josselyn also says of these birds, "I have known twelve score and above kill'd at two shots The contrast in this respect of these early colonial times with the present requires no further comment.

Reference has also already been made to the extirpation of the turkey over large portions of its former habitat. There is little now to remind one that it formerly ranged in New England from Maine, southern New Hampshire, and southern Vermont, thence southward, except the tradition of its former occurrence at certain localities. Morton, however, who is more explicit in these matters than most of the other early historians, thus speaks of its former abundance in Eastern Massachusetts: "Turkies there are, which divers times in great flocks have sallied by our doores; and then a gunne (being commonly in a redinesse,) salutes them with such a courtesie, as makes them take a turne in the Cooke roome. They daunce by the doore so well ..... .I had a Salvage who hath taken out his boy in a morning, and they have brought home their loades about noone. I have asked them what number they found in the woods, who answered Neent Metawna, which is a thousand that day; the plenty of them is such in those parts." Josselyn thus refers to their early decrease: "I have also seen threescore broods of young Turkies on the side of a Marsh, sunning themselves betimes, but this was thirty years since, the English and the Indian having now [1672] destroyed the breed, so that 'tis very rare to meet with a wild Turkie in the Woods."

Our markets are now periodically so well supplied with wild pigeons, and such numbers of them are occasionally reported at

5 Voyages to New England, p. 102. New English Canaan, pp. 69, 70. New England's Rarities, p. 9.