NEW BRUNSWICK: 

Partridge, plover and woodcock.  Moose and deer are getting more plentiful every year.—­(W.W.  Gerard, St. John.)

NOVA SCOTIA: 

The Canada grouse may possibly become extinct in Nova Scotia, unless the protection it now enjoys can save it.  The American golden plover, which formerly came in immense flocks, is now very rare.  Snowflakes are very much less common than formerly, but I think this is because our winters are now usually much less severe.  The caribou is almost extinct on the mainland of Nova Scotia, but is still found in North Cape Breton Island.  The wolf has become excessively rare, but as it is found in New Brunswick, it may occur here at any time again.  The beaver had been threatened with extinction; but since being protected, it has multiplied, and is now on a fairly safe footing again.—­(Curator of Museum, Halifax.)

ONTARIO: 

Quail are getting scarce.—­(E.  Tinsley, Toronto.)

Wood-duck, bob white, woodcock, golden plover, Hudsonian curlew, knot and dowitcher [are threatened with extinction.]—­(C.W.  Nash, Toronto.)

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: 

The species threatened with extinction are the golden plover, American woodcock, pied-billed grebe, red-throated loon, sooty shearwater, gadwall, ruddy duck, black-crowned night heron, Hudsonian godwit, kildeer, northern pileated woodpecker, chimney swift, yellow-bellied flycatcher, red-winged blackbird, pine finch, magnolia warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet.—­(E.T.  Carbonell, Charlottetown.)

In closing the notes of this survey, I repeat my assurance that they are not offered on a basis of infallibility.  It would require years of work to obtain answers from forty-eight states to the three questions that I have asked that could be offered as absolutely exact.  All these reports are submitted on the well-recognized court-testimony basis,—­“to the best of our knowledge and belief.”  Gathered as they have been from persons whose knowledge is good, these opinions are therefore valuable; and they furnish excellent indices of wild-life conditions as they exist in 1912 in the various states and provinces of North America north of Mexico.

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CHAPTER VI

THE REGULAR ARMY OF DESTRUCTION

In order to cure any disease, the surgeon must make of it a correct diagnosis.  It is useless to try to prescribe remedies without a thorough understanding of the trouble.

That the best and most interesting wild life of America is disappearing at a rapid rate, we all know only too well.  That proposition is entirely beyond the domain of argument.  The fact that a species or a group of species has made a little gain here and there, or is stationary, does not sensibly diminish the force of the descending blow.  The wild-life situation is full of surprises.  For example, in 1902 I was astounded by the extent to which bird life had decreased over the 130 miles between Miles City, Montana, and the Missouri River since 1886; for there was no reason to expect anything of the kind.  Even the jack rabbits and coyotes had almost totally disappeared.