Note 45 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 4)

The cause of this diminution is not difficult to find. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the country was uncultivated, and full of great forests. The few Indians that lived here seldom disturbed the birds. They carried on no trade among themselves, iron and gun powder were unknown to them. One hundredth part of the fowl which at that time were so plentiful here, would have sufficed to feed the few inhabitants; and considering that they cultivated their small maize fields, caught fish, hunted stags, beavers, bears, wild cattle, and other animals whose flesh was delicious to them, it will soon appear how little they disturbed the birds. But since the arrival of great crouds of Europeans, things are greatly changed; the country is well peopled, and the woods are cut down: the people increasing in this country, they have by hunting and shooting in part extirpated the birds, in part scared them away: in spring the people still take both eggs, mothers and young indifferently, because no regulations are made to the contrary. And if any had been made, the spirit of freedom which prevails in the country would not suffer them to be obeyed. But though the eatable birds have been diminished greatly, yet there are others, which have rather increased than decreased in number, since the arrival of the Europeans: this can most properly be said of a species of daws which the English call Blackbirds45 and the Swedes Maize thieves, Dr. Linnæus calls them Gracula Quiscula. And together with them, the several sorts of Squirrels among the quadrupeds have spread: for these and the former, live chiefly upon maize, or at least they are most greedy of it. But as population increases, the cultivation of maize increases, and of course the food of the above-mentioned animals is more plentiful: to this it is to be added, that these latter are rarely eaten, and therefore they are more at liberty to multiply their kind. There are likewise other birds which are not eaten, of which at present there are nearly as many as there were before the arrival of the Europeans. On the other hand I heard great complaints of the great decrease of eatable fowl, not only in this province, but in all the parts of North America, where I have been.