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The Eskimo curlew within the last decade has probably been exterminated and the other curlews greatly reduced. In fact, all the larger species of shorebirds have suffered severely. So adverse to shorebirds are present conditions that the wonder is that any escape. In both fall and spring they are shot along the whole route of their migration north and south.
These worms are common on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and are eaten by shorebirds wherever they occur. It is not uncommon to find that from 100 to 250 of them have been eaten at one meal. The birds known to feed upon them are: The economic record of the shorebirds deserves nothing but praise. These birds injure no crop, but on the contrary feed upon many of the worst enemies of agriculture.
The shorebirds should be relieved from persecution, and if we desire to save from extermination a majority of the species, action must be prompt. The protection of shorebirds need not be based solely on esthetic or sentimental grounds, for few groups of birds more thoroughly deserve protection from an economic standpoint.
True to their name they frequent the shores of all bodies of water, large and small, but many of them are equally at home on plains and prairies. Throughout the eastern United States shorebirds are fast vanishing. While formerly numerous species swarmed along the Atlantic coast and in the prairie regions, many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent.
Ducks and shorebirds occurred in some numbers, but the vast majority were small sparrows, larks and thrushes. These were there during my visit by the thousands, if not ten thousands. To the market they were brought in large sacks, strung in fours on twigs which had been passed through the eyes and then tied.
The man who would shoot and eat any of the song-birds, woodpeckers, or shorebirds that worked for me, I would surely molest. Every farmer should post every foot of his lands, cultivated and not cultivated. The farmer who does not do so is his own enemy; and he needs a guardian.
Shorebirds perform an important service by their inroads upon mosquitoes, some of which play so conspicuous a part in the dissemination of diseases. Thus, nine species are known to feed upon mosquitoes, and hundreds of the larvae or "wigglers" were found in several stomachs. Fifty-three per cent of the food of twenty-eight northern phalaropes from one locality consisted of mosquito larvae.
Two species of shorebirds, the killdeer and upland plover, still further befriend cattle by devouring the North American fever tick. Crane-fly larvae are frequently seriously destructive locally in grass and wheat fields. Among their numerous bird enemies, shorebirds rank high. Another group of insects of which the shorebirds are very fond is grasshoppers.
The above-named species are not the only ones that should be exempt from persecution, for all the shorebirds of the United States are in great need of better protection. They should be protected, first, to save them from the danger of extermination, and, second, because of their economic importance.
Their warfare on crayfishes must not be overlooked, nor must we forget the more personal debt of gratitude we owe them for preying upon mosquitoes. They are the most important bird enemies of these pests known to us. Shorebirds have been hunted until only a remnant of their once vast numbers is left.
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