Read if you please Mr. W.A.  McAtee’s convincing pamphlet (Biological Survey, No. 79), on “Our Vanishing Shore Birds,” reproduced in full in Chapter XXIII.  He says:  “Throughout the eastern United States, shore birds are fast vanishing.  Many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent.  So averse to shore birds are present conditions [of slaughter] that the wonder is that any escape.  All the shore birds of the United States are in great need of better protection....  Shore birds have been hunted until only a remnant of their once vast numbers are left.  Their limited powers of reproduction, coupled with the natural vicissitudes of the breeding period, make their increase slow, and peculiarly expose them to danger of extermination.  So great is their economic value that their retention in the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a serious loss to agriculture.”

And yet, here in New York state there are many men who think they “know,” who indignantly scoff at the idea that our shore birds need a five-year close season to help save them from annihilation.  The writer’s appeal for this at a recent convention of the New York State Fish, Game and Forest League fell upon deaf ears, and was not even seriously discussed.

The shore-birds must be saved; and just at present it seems that the only persons who will do it are those who are not sportsmen, and who never kill game!  If the sportsmen persist in refusing to act, to them we must appeal.

Besides the woodcock and snipe, the species that are most seriously threatened with extinction at an early date are the following: 

SPECIES IN GREAT DANGER

Willet Catoptrophorus semipalmatus
Dowitcher Macrorhamphus griseus
Knot:  Red-Breasted Sandpiper Tryngites subruficollis
Upland Plover Bartramia longicauda
Golden Plover Charadrius dominicus
Pectoral Sandpiper Pisobia maculata

Of these fine species, Mr. Forbush, whose excellent knowledge of the shore birds of the Atlantic coast is well worth the most serious consideration, says that the upland plover, or Bartramian sandpiper, “is in imminent danger of extinction.  Five reports from localities where this bird formerly bred give it as nearing extinction, and four as extinct.  This is one of the most useful of all birds in grass land, feeding largely on grasshoppers and cutworms....  There is no difference of opinion in regard to the diminution of the shore birds; the reports from all quarters are the same.  It is noteworthy that practically all observers agree that, considering all species, these birds have fallen off about 75 per cent within twenty-five to forty years, and that several species are nearly extirpated.”

[Illustration:  THE GRAY SQUIRREL, A FAMILIAR FRIEND WHEN PROTECTED]