Author: Aretas A. Saunders

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2016-09-02

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9781333451226

Excerpt from A Distribution List of the Birds of Montana: With Notes on the Migration and Nesting of the Better Known Species Montana is a state that is now being developed very rapidly. In the last ten years many changes have taken place, changes that have had a great effect on its bird life. Many of the most interesting species are becoming rare. The Trumpeter Swan, the Sandhill and Whooping cranes and other pic turesque species are no longer common. The day is fast approaching when the Long billed Curlew and the Sage Hen will be very rare, even in the more remote localities. The cause of these changes in bird life is the rapid settle ment of the country, involving the building of railroads, and the clearing, plowing and irrigating of the lands. Even though these threatened species are protected by law, they must go sooner or later; for the cause of their scarcity is not so much the shooting or other persecution on the part of man, as his mere presence, his occupation of the ground where they had been accustomed to breed. Species like the Killdeer can adapt themselves to the new conditions, and can become even more abundant in the presence of man than before. But such birds as the Curlew cannot accustom themselves to the change, and there seems to be no way that man can help them. They are doomed to become rare, perhaps total ly extinct. The study of these changing conditions and their effects on bird life is an important one for the future ornithologist in Montana. Another sort of change that is taking place, that causes many puzzles to the student of distribution, is that which concerns geographical names. The map accompanying this list is taken from the most recent one I could obtain, one dated But no map can keep up with the rapid changes in names that are taking place. New towns appear, and often older towns, remote from newly built railroads, become deserted and remain as memories only. It is already diffi cult to find the location on accessible maps of many of the older records. Coun ties have been created in considerable number in the past few years. The area covered by Mr. E. S. Cameron 's work, including Custer and Dawson counties, now covers seven counties, Richland, Dawson, Wibaux, Prairie, Custer, Fallon, and Carter. In the text I have referred to this area still as Custer and Dawson counties because it was not possible in such cases to locate the Cameron records more closely. However, a large majority of these records, those located at Terry and Fallon, are in what is now Prairie County. I have shown on the map, wher ever it was possible to do so, all the important localities mentioned in the text. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.