“In the opinion of many, the formerly abundant prairie chicken is doomed to early extinction.  Many will testify to their abundance in those years [in South Dakota, 1902] when the great land movement was taking place.  The influx of hungry settlers, together with an occasional bad season, decimated their ranks.  They were eaten by the farmers, both in and out of season.  Driven from pillar to post, with no friends and insufficient food,—­what else then can be expected?”

Mr. F.C.  Pellett, of Atlantic, Iowa, says:  “Unless ways can be devised of rearing these birds in the domestic state, the prairie hen in my opinion is doomed to early extinction.”

The older inhabitants here say that there is not one song-bird in summer where there used to be ten.—­(G.H.  Nicol, in Outdoor Life March, 1912.)

KANSAS: 

To all of those named in my previous list that are not actually extinct, I might add the prairie hen, the lesser prairie hen, as well as the prairie sharp-tailed grouse and the wood-duck.  Such water birds as the avocets, godwits, greater yellow-legs, long-billed curlew and Eskimo curlew are becoming very rare.  All the water birds that are killed as game birds have been greatly reduced in numbers during the past 25 years.  I have not seen a wood-duck in 5 years. The prairie chicken has entirely disappeared from this locality.  A few are still seen in the sand hills of western Kansas, and they are still comparatively abundant along the extreme southwestern line, and in northern Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.—­(C.H.  Smyth, Wichita.)

Yellow-legged plover, golden plover; Hudsonian and Eskimo curlew, prairie chicken.—­(James Howard, Wichita.)

LOUISIANA: 

Ivory-billed woodpecker, butterball, bufflehead.  The wood-duck is greatly diminishing every year, and if not completely protected, ten years hence no wood-duck will be found in Louisiana.—­(Frank M. Miller, and G.E.  Beyer, New Orleans.)

Ivory-billed woodpecker, sandhill crane, whooping crane, pinnated grouse, American and snowy egret where unprotected.—­(E.A.  McIlhenny, Avery Island.)

MAINE: 

Wood-duck, upland plover, purple martin, house wren, pileated woodpecker, bald eagle, yellow-legs, great blue heron, Canada goose, redhead and canvasback duck.—­(John F. Sprague, Dover.)

Puffin, Leach’s petrel, eider duck, laughing gull, great blue heron, fish-hawk and bald eagle.—­(Arthur H. Norton, Portland.)

MARYLAND: 

Curlew, pileated woodpecker, summer duck, snowy heron.  No record of sandhill crane for the last 35 years.  Greater yellow-leg is much scarcer than formerly, also Bartramian sandpiper.  The only two birds which show an increase in the past few years are the robin and lesser scaup.  General protection of the robin has caused its increase; stopping of spring shooting in the North has probably caused the increase of the latter.  As a general proposition