The Arizona elk was exterminated before the separate standing of the species had been discovered by naturalists, and before even one skin had been preserved in a museum! In 1902 Mr. E.W. Nelson described the species from two male skulls, all the material of which he knew. Since that time, a third male skull, bearing an excellent pair of antlers, has been discovered by Mr. Ferdinand Kaegebehn, a member of the New York Zoological Society, and presented to our National Collection of Heads and Horns. It came from the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona, in 1884. The species was first exterminated in the central and northern mountains of Arizona, probably twenty years ago, and made its last stand in northwestern New Mexico. Precisely when it became extinct there, its last abiding place, we do not know, but in time the facts may appear.

THE QUAGGA, (Equus quagga).—Before the days of Livingstone, Gordon-Cumming and Anderson, the grassy plains and half-forested hills of South Africa were inhabited by great herds of a wild equine species that in its markings was a sort of connecting link between the striped zebras and the stripeless wild asses. The quagga resembled a wild ass with a few zebra stripes around its neck, and no stripes elsewhere.

There is no good reason why a mammal that is not in any one of the families regularly eaten by man should be classed as a game animal. White men, outside of the western border of the continent of Europe, do not eat horses; and by this token there is no reason why a zebra should be shot as a "game" animal, any more than a baboon. A big male baboon is dangerous; a male zebra is not.

Nevertheless, white men have elected to shoot zebras as game; and under this curse the unfortunate quagga fell to rise no more. The species was shot to a speedy death by sportsmen, and by the British and Dutch farmers of South Africa. It became extinct about 1875, and to-day there are only 18 specimens in all the museums of the world.

THE BLAUBOK, (Hippotragus leucophaeus).—The first of the African antelopes to become extinct in modern times was a species of large size, closely related to the roan antelope of to-day, and named by the early Dutch settlers of Cape Colony the blaubok, which means "blue-buck." It was snuffed out of existence in the year 1800, so quickly and so thoroughly that, like the Arizona elk, it very nearly escaped the annals of natural history. According to the careful investigations of Mr. Graham Renshaw, there are only eight specimens in existence in all the museums of Europe. In general terms it may be stated that this species has been extinct for about a century.

DAVID'S DEER, (Elaphurus davidianus).—We enter this species with those that are totally extinct, because this is true of it so far as its wild state is concerned. It is a deer nearly as large as the red deer of Europe, with 3-tined antlers about equal in total length to those of the red deer. Its most striking differential character is its long tail, a feature that among the deer of the world is quite unique.

Originally this species inhabited "northern Mongolia" (China), but in a wild state it became extinct before its zoological standing became known to the scientific world. The species was called to the attention of zoologists by a Roman Catholic missionary, called Father David, and when finally described it was named in his honor.

At the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion, in 1900, there were about 200 specimens living in the imperial park of China, a short distance south of Pekin; but during the rebellion, all of them were killed and eaten, thus totally exterminating the species from Asia.

Fortunately, previous to that calamity (in 1894), the Duke of Bedford had by considerable effort and expenditure procured and established in his matchless park surrounding Woburn Abbey, England, a herd of eighteen specimens of this rarest of all deer. That nucleus has thriven and increased, until in 1910 it contained thirty-four head. Owing to the fact that all the living female specimens of this remarkable species are concentrated in one spot, and perfectly liable to be wiped out in one year by riot, war or disease, there is some cause for anxiety. The writer has gone so far as to suggest the desirability of starting a new herd of David's deer, at some point far distant from England, as an insurance measure against the possibility of calamity at Woburn. Excepting two or three specimens in European zoological gardens that have been favored by the Duke of Bedford, there are no living specimens outside of Woburn Park.



THE RHYTINA, (Rhytina gigas).—The most northerly Sirenian that (so far as we know) ever inhabited the earth, lived on the Commander Islands in the northern end of Behring Sea, and was exterminated by man, for its oil and its flesh, about 1768. It was first made known to the world by Steller, in 1741, and must have become extinct near the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The rhytina belonged to the same mammalian Order as the manatee of Florida and South America, and the dugong of Australia. The largest manatee that Florida has produced, so far as we know, was thirteen feet long. The rhytina attained a length of between thirty and thirty-five feet, and a weight of 6,000 pounds or over. The flesh of this animal, like that of the manatee and dugong, must have been edible, and surely was prized by the hungry sailors and natives of its time. It is not strange that such a species was quickly exterminated by man, in the arctic regions. The wonder is that it ever existed at a latitude so outrageous for a Sirenian, an animal which by all precedents should prefer life in temperate or warm waters.



BURCHELL'S ZEBRA (Equus burchelli typicus).—The foundation type of what now is the Burchell group of zebras, consisting of four or five sub-species of the original species of burchelli, is an animal abundantly striped as to its body, neck and head, but with legs that are almost white and free from stripes. The sub-species have legs that are striped about half as much as the mountain zebra and the Grevy species.

While there are Chapman zebras and Grant zebras in plenty, and of Crawshay's not a few, all these are forms that have developed northward of the range of the parent species, the original Equus burchelli. For half a century in South Africa the latter had been harried and driven and shot, and now it is gone, forever. Now, the museum people of the world are hungrily enumerating their mounted specimens, and live ones cannot be procured with money, because there are none! Already it is common talk that "the true Burchell zebra is extinct;" and unfortunately there is no good reason to doubt it. Even if there are a few now living in some remote nook of the Transvaal, or Zululand, or Portuguese East Africa, the chances are as 100 to 1 that they will not be suffered to bring back the species; and so, to Burchell's zebra, the world is to-day saying "Farewell!"



* * * * *

SPECIES OF LARGE MAMMALS ALMOST EXTINCT

THE THYLACINE or TASMANIAN WOLF, (Thylacinus cynocephalus).—Four years ago, when Mr. W.H.D. Le Souef, Director of the Melbourne Zoological Garden (Australia), stood before the cage of the living thylacine in the New York Zoological Park, he first expressed surprise at the sight of the animal, then said:

"I advise you to take excellent care of that specimen; for when it is gone, you never will get another. The species soon will be extinct."

This opinion has been supported, quite independently, by a lady who is the highest authority on the present status of that species, Mrs. Mary G. Roberts, of Hobart, Tasmania. For nearly ten years Mrs. Roberts has been procuring all the living specimens of the thylacine that money could buy, and attempting to breed them at her private zoo. She states that the mountain home of this animal is now occupied by flocks of sheep, and because of the fact that the "Tasmanian wolves" raid the flocks and kill lambs, the sheep-owners and herders are systematically poisoning the thylacines as fast as possible. Inasmuch as the species is limited to Tasmania, Mrs. Roberts and others fear that the sheepmen will totally exterminate the remnant at an early date. This animal is the largest and also the most interesting carnivorous marsupial of Australia, and its untimely end will be a cause for sincere regret.



THE WEST INDIAN SEAL, (Monachus tropicalis).—For at least fifty years, all the zoologists who ever had heard of this species believed that the oil-hunters had completely exterminated it. In 1885, when the National Museum came into possession of one poorly-mounted skin, from Professor Poey, of Havana, it was regarded as a great prize.

Most unexpectedly, in 1886 American zoologists were startled by the discovery of a small herd on the Triangle Islands, in the Caribbean Sea, near Yucatan, by Mr. Henry L. Ward, now director of the Milwaukee Public Museum, and Professor Ferrari, of the National Museum of Mexico. They found about twenty specimens, and collected only a sufficient number to establish the true character of the species.

Since that time, four living specimens have been captured, and sent to the New York Aquarium, where they lived for satisfactory periods. The indoor life and atmosphere did not seem to injure the natural vitality of the animals. In fact, I think they were far more lively in the Aquarium than were the sluggish creatures that Mr. Ward saw on the Triangle reefs, and described in his report of the expedition.

It is quite possible that there are yet alive a few specimens of this odd species; but the Damocletian sword of destruction hangs over them suspended by a fine hair, and it is to be expected that in the future some roving sea adventurer will pounce upon the Remnant, and wipe it out of existence for whatever reason may to him seem good.



THE CALIFORNIA ELEPHANT SEAL, (Mirounga angustirostris).—This remarkable long-snouted species of seal was reluctantly stricken from the fauna of the United States several years ago, and for at least fifteen years it has been regarded as totally extinct. Last year, however (1911), the Albatross scientific expedition, under the control of Director C.H. Townsend of the New York Aquarium, visited Guadalupe Island, 175 miles off the Pacific coast of Lower California and there found about 150 living elephant seals. They took six living specimens, all of which died after a few months in captivity. Ever since that time, first one person and then another comes to the front with a cheerful proposition to go to those islands and "clean up" all the remainder of those wonderful seals. One hunting party could land on Guadalupe, and in one week totally destroy the last remnant of this almost extinct species. To-day the only question is, Who will be mean enough to do it?

Fortunately, those seals have no commercial value whatsoever. The little oil they would yield would not pay the wages of cook's mate. The proven impossibility of keeping specimens alive in captivity, even for one year, and the absence of cash value in the skins, even for museum purposes, has left nothing of value in the animals to justify an expedition to kill or to capture them. No zoological garden or park desires any of them, at any price. Adult males attain a length of sixteen feet, and females eleven feet. Formerly this species was abundant in San Christobal Bay, Lower California.

At present, Mexico is in no frame of mind to provide real protection to a small colony of seals of no commercial value, 175 miles from her mainland, on an uninhabited island. It is wildly improbable that those seals will be permitted to live. It is a safe prediction that our next news of the elephant seals of Guadalupe will tell of the total extinction of those last 140 survivors of the species.

THE CALIFORNIA GRIZZLY BEAR, (Ursus horribilis californicus).—No one protects grizzly bears, except in the Yellowstone Park and other game preserves. For obvious reasons, it is impossible to say whether any individuals of this huge species now remain alive, or how long it will be until the last one falls before a .405 Winchester engine of extermination. We know that a living specimen can not be procured with money, and we believe that "Old Monarch" now in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, is the last specimen of his species that ever will be exhibited alive.

I can think of no reason, save general Californian apathy, why the extinction of this huge and remarkable animal was not prevented by law. The sunset grizzly (on a railroad track) is the advertising emblem of the Golden State, and surely the state should take sufficient interest in the species to prevent its total extermination.

But it will not. California is hell-bent on exterminating a long list of her wild-life species, and it is very doubtful whether the masses can be reached and aroused in time to stop it. Name some of the species? Certainly; with all the pleasure in life: The band-tailed pigeon, the white-tailed kite, the sharp-tailed grouse, the sage grouse, the mountain sheep, prong-horned antelope, California mule deer, and ducks and geese too numerous to mention.

* * * * *

CHAPTER V

THE EXTERMINATION OF SPECIES, STATE BY STATE

Early in 1912 I addressed to about 250 persons throughout the United States, three questions, as follows:

1. What species of birds have become totally extinct in your state?

2. What species of birds and mammals are threatened with early extinction?

3. What species of mammals have been exterminated throughout your state?

These queries were addressed to persons whose tastes and observations rendered them especially qualified to furnish the information desired. The interest shown in the inquiry was highly gratifying. The best of the information given is summarized below; but this tabulation also includes much information acquired from other sources. The general summary of the subject will, I am sure, convince all thoughtful persons that the present condition of the best wild life of the nation is indeed very grave. This list is not submitted as representing prolonged research or absolute perfection, but it is sufficient to point forty-eight morals.

* * * * *

BIRDS AND MAMMALS THAT HAVE BEEN TOTALLY EXTERMINATED IN VARIOUS STATES AND PROVINCES

ALABAMA:

Passenger pigeon, Carolina parrakeet; puma, elk, gray wolf, beaver.

ARIZONA:

Ridgway's quail (Colinus ridgwayi); Arizona elk (Cervus merriami), bison.

ARKANSAS:

Passenger pigeon, Carolina parrakeet, whooping crane; bison, elk, beaver.

CALIFORNIA:

No birds totally extinct, but several nearly so; grizzly bear (?), elephant seal.

COLORADO:

Carolina parrakeet, whooping crane; bison.

CONNECTICUT:

Passenger pigeon, Eskimo curlew, great auk, Labrador duck, upland plover, heath hen, wild turkey; puma, gray wolf, Canada lynx, black bear, elk.

DELAWARE:

Wild turkey, ruffed grouse, passenger pigeon, heath hen, dickcissel, whooping crane, Carolina parrakeet; white-tailed deer, black bear, gray wolf, beaver, Canada lynx, puma.

FLORIDA:

Flamingo, roseate spoonbill, scarlet ibis, Carolina parrakeet, passenger pigeon.

GEORGIA:

Passenger pigeon, Carolina parrakeet, whooping crane, trumpeter swan; bison, elk, beaver, gray wolf, puma.—(Last 3, Craig D. Arnold.)

IDAHO:

Wood duck, long-billed curlew, whooping crane; bison.—(Dr. C.S. Moody.)

ILLINOIS:

Passenger pigeon, whooping crane, Carolina parrakeet, trumpeter swan, snowy egret, Eskimo curlew; bison, elk, white-tailed deer, black bear, puma, Canada lynx.

INDIANA:

Passenger pigeon, whooping crane, northern raven, wild turkey, ivory-billed woodpecker, Carolina parrakeet, trumpeter swan, snowy egret, Eskimo curlew; bison, elk, white-tailed deer, black bear, Canada lynx, beaver, porcupine.—(Amos W. Butler.)

IOWA:

Wild turkey, Eskimo curlew, whooping crane, trumpeter swan, white pelican, passenger pigeon; bison, elk, antelope, white-tailed deer, black bear, puma, Canada lynx, gray wolf, beaver, porcupine.

KANSAS:

American scaup duck, woodcock, ruffed grouse, wild turkey, pileated woodpecker, parrakeet, white-necked raven, American raven (all Prof. L.L. Dyche); golden plover, Eskimo curlew, Hudsonian curlew, wood-duck (C.H. Smyth and James Howard, Wichita). Bison, elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, gray wolf, beaver (?), otter, lynx (?) (L.L.D.)

(Reports as complete and thorough as these for other localities no doubt would show lists equally long for several other states.—(W.T.H.))

KENTUCKY:

Passenger pigeon, parrakeet; bison, elk, puma, beaver, gray wolf.

LOUISIANA:

Passenger pigeon, Carolina parrakeet, Eskimo curlew, flamingo, scarlet ibis, roseate spoonbill; bison, ocelot.

MAINE:

Great auk, Labrador duck, Eskimo curlew, oystercatcher, wild turkey, heath hen, passenger pigeon; puma, gray wolf, wolverine, caribou.—(All Arthur H. Norton, Portland.)

MARYLAND:

Sandhill crane, parrakeet, passenger pigeon; bison, elk, beaver, gray wolf, puma, porcupine.

MASSACHUSETTS:

Wild turkey, passenger pigeon, Labrador duck, whooping crane, sandhill crane, black-throated bunting, great auk, Eskimo curlew.—(William Brewster, W.P. Wharton); Canada lynx, gray wolf, black bear, moose, elk.

MICHIGAN:

Passenger pigeon, wild turkey, sandhill crane, whooping crane, bison, elk, wolverine.

MINNESOTA:

Whooping crane, white pelican, trumpeter swan, passenger pigeon, bison, elk, mule deer, antelope.

A strange condition exists in Minnesota, as will be seen by reference to the next list of states. A great many species are on the road to speedy extermination; but as yet the number of those that have become totally extinct up to date is small.

MISSISSIPPI:

Parrakeet, passenger pigeon; bison. (Data incomplete.)

MISSOURI:

Parrakeet, ivory-billed woodpecker, passenger pigeon, whooping crane, pinnated grouse; bison, elk, beaver.

MONTANA:

Although many Montana birds are on the verge of extinction, the only species that we are sure have totally vanished are the passenger pigeon and whooping crane. Mammals extinct, bison.

NEBRASKA:

Curlew, wild turkey, parrakeet, passenger pigeon, whooping crane, and no doubt all the other species that have disappeared from Kansas. Mammals: bison, antelope, elk, and mule deer.

NEVADA:

By a rather odd combination of causes and effects, Nevada retains representatives of nearly all her original outfit of bird and mammal species except the bison and elk; but several of them will shortly become extinct.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Wild turkey, heath hen, pigeon, whooping crane, Eskimo curlew, upland plover, Labrador duck; woodland caribou, moose.

NEW JERSEY:

Heath hen, wild turkey, pigeon, parrakeet, Eskimo curlew, Labrador duck, snowy egret, whooping crane, sandhill crane, trumpeter swan, pileated woodpecker; gray wolf, black bear, beaver, elk, porcupine, puma.

NEW MEXICO:

Notwithstanding an enormous decrease in the general volume of wild life in New Mexico, comparatively few species have been totally exterminated. The most important are the bison and Arizona elk.

NEW YORK:

Heath hen, passenger pigeon, wild turkey, great auk, trumpeter swan, Labrador duck, harlequin duck, Eskimo curlew, upland plover, golden plover, whooping crane, sandhill crane, purple martin, pileated woodpecker, moose, caribou, bison, elk, puma, gray wolf, wolverine, marten, fisher, beaver, fox, squirrel, harbor seal.

NORTH CAROLINA:

Ivory-billed woodpecker, parrakeet, pigeon, roseate spoonbill, long-billed curlew (Numenius americanus), Eskimo curlew; bison, elk, gray wolf, puma, beaver.—(E.L. Ewbank, T. Gilbert Pearson, H.H. and C.S. Brimley.)

NORTH DAKOTA:

Whooping crane, long-billed curlew, Hudsonian godwit, passenger pigeon; bison, elk, mule deer, mountain sheep.—(W.B. Bell and Alfred Eastgate.)

OHIO:

Pigeon, wild turkey, pinnated grouse, northern pileated woodpecker, parrakeet; white-tailed deer, bison, elk, black bear, puma, gray wolf, beaver, otter, puma, lynx.

OKLAHOMA:

Records for birds insufficient. Mammals: bison, elk, antelope, mule deer, puma, black bear.

OREGON:

The only species known to have been wholly exterminated during recent times is the California condor and the bison, both of which were rare stragglers into Oregon; but a number of species are now close to extinction.

PENNSYLVANIA:

Heath hen, pigeon, parrakeet, Labrador duck; bison, elk, moose, puma, gray wolf, Canada lynx, wolverine, beaver.—(Witmer Stone, Dr. C.B. Penrose and Arthur Chapman.)

RHODE ISLAND:

Heath hen, passenger pigeon, wild turkey, least tern, eastern willet, Eskimo curlew, marbled godwit, long-billed curlew.—(Harry S. Hathaway); puma, black bear, gray wolf, beaver, otter, wolverine.

SOUTH CAROLINA:

Ivory-billed woodpecker, Carolina parrakeet; bison, elk, puma, gray wolf.—(James H. Rice, Jr.)

SOUTH DAKOTA:

Whooping crane, trumpeter swan, pigeon, long-billed curlew; bison, elk, mule deer, mountain sheep.

TENNESSEE:

Records insufficient.

TEXAS:

Wild turkey, passenger pigeon, ivory-billed woodpecker, flamingo, roseate spoonbill, American egret, whooping crane, wood-duck; bison, elk, mountain sheep, antelope, "a small, dark deer that lived 40 years ago." (Capt. M.B. Davis.)

UTAH:

Records insufficient.

VIRGINIA:

Records insufficient.

WASHINGTON:

Very few species have become totally extinct, but a number are on the verge, and will be named in the next state schedule.

WEST VIRGINIA:

Pigeon, parrakeet; bison, elk, beaver, puma, gray wolf.

WISCONSIN:

Whooping crane, passenger pigeon, American egret, wild turkey, Carolina parrakeet; bison, moose, elk, woodland caribou, puma, wolverine.

WYOMING:

Whooping crane, trumpeter swan, wood-duck; mountain goat.



CANADA

ALBERTA:

Passenger pigeon, whooping crane; bison.

BRITISH COLUMBIA:

A. Bryan Williams reports: "Do not know of any birds having become extinct."

MANITOBA:

Pigeon; bison, antelope, gray wolf.

NEW BRUNSWICK:

Pigeon.

NOVA SCOTIA:

Labrador duck, Eskimo curlew, passenger pigeon.

ONTARIO:

Wild turkey, pigeon, Eskimo curlew.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND:

(Reported by E.T. Carbonell): Eskimo curlew, horned grebe, ring-billed gull, Caspian tern, passenger pigeon, Wilson's petrel, wood-duck, Barrow's golden-eye, whistling swan, American eider, white-fronted goose, purple sandpiper, Canada grouse, long-eared owl, screech owl, black-throated bunting, pine warbler, red-necked grebe, purple martin and catbird; beaver, black fox, silver gray fox, marten and black bear.

QUEBEC:

Pigeon.

SASKATCHEWAN:

Pigeon; bison.

* * * * *

BIRDS AND MAMMALS THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION

The second question submitted in my inquiry produced results even more startling than the first. None of the persons reporting can be regarded as alarmists, but some of the lists of species approaching extinction are appallingly long. To their observations I add other notes and observations of interest at this time.

ALABAMA:

Wood-duck, snowy egret, woodcock. "The worst enemy of wild life is the pot-hunter and game hog. These wholesale slaughterers of game resort to any device and practice, it matters not how murderous, to accomplish the pernicious ends of their nefarious campaign of relentless extermination of fur and feather. They cannot be controlled by local laws, for these after having been tried for several generations have proven consummate failures, for the reason that local authorities will not enforce the provisions of game and bird protective statutes. Experience has demonstrated the fact that no one desires to inform voluntarily on his neighbors, and since breaking the game law is not construed to involve moral turpitude, even to an infinitesimal degree, by many of our citizens, the plunderers of nature's storehouse thus go free, it matters not how great the damage done to the people as a whole."—(John H. Wallace, Jr., Game Commissioner of Alabama.)

ALASKA:

Thanks to geographic and climatic conditions, the Alaskan game laws and $15,000 with which to enforce them, the status of the wild life of Alaska is fairly satisfactory. I think that at present no species is in danger of extinction in the near future. When it was pointed out to Congress in 1902, by Madison Grant, T.S. Palmer and others that the wild life of Alaska was seriously threatened, Congress immediately enacted the law that was recommended, and now appropriates yearly a fair sum for its enforcement. I regard the Alaskan situation as being, for so vast and difficult a region, reasonably well in hand, even though open to improvement.

There is one fatal defect in our Alaskan game law, in the perpetual and sweeping license to kill, that is bestowed upon "natives" and "prospectors." Under cover of this law, the Indians can slaughter game to any extent they choose; and they are great killers. For example: In 1911 at Sand Point, Kenai Peninsula, Frank E. Kleinchmidt saw 82 caribou tongues in the boat of a native, that had been brought in for sale at 50 cents, while the carcasses were left where they fell, to poison the air of Alaska. Thanks to the game law, and five wardens, the number of big game animals killed last year in Alaska by sportsmen was reasonably small,—just as it should have been.—(W.T.H.)

ARIZONA:

During an overland trip made by Dr. MacDougal and others in 1907 from Tucson to Sonoyta, on the international boundary, 150 miles and back again, we saw not one antelope or deer.—(W.T.H.)

CALIFORNIA:

Swan, white heron, bronze ibis. California valley quail are getting very scarce, and unless adequate protection is afforded them shortly, they will be found hereafter only in remote districts. Ducks also are decreasing rapidly.—(H.W. Keller, Los Angeles.)

Sage grouse and Columbian sharp-tailed grouse are so nearly extinct that it may practically be said that they are extinct. Among species likely to be exterminated in the near future are the wood-duck and band-tailed pigeon.—(W.P. Taylor, Berkeley.)

COLORADO:

Sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse; nearly all the shore birds.

CONNECTICUT:

All the shore birds; quail, purple martin.

DELAWARE:

Wood duck, upland plover, least tern, Wilson tern, roseate tern, black skimmer, oystercatcher, and numerous other littoral species. Pileated woodpeckers, bald eagles and all the ducks are much more rare than formerly. Swan are about gone, geese scarce. The list of ducks, geese and shore-birds, as well as of terns and gulls that are nearing extinction is appalling.—(C.J. Pennock, Wilmington.)

Wood-duck, woodcock, turtle dove and bob-white.—(A.R. Spaid, Wilmington.)

FLORIDA:

Limpkin, ivory-billed woodpecker, wild turkey (?).

GEORGIA:

Ruffed grouse, wild turkey.

IDAHO:

Harlequin duck, mountain plover, dusky grouse, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, sage grouse. Elk, goats and grizzly bears are becoming very scarce. Of the smaller animals I have not seen a fisher for years, and marten are hardly to be found. The same is true of other species.—(Dr. Charles S. Moody, Sand Point.)

ILLINOIS:

Pinnated grouse, except where rigidly protected. In Vermillion County, by long and persistent protection Harvey J. Sconce has bred back upon his farm about 400 of these birds.

INDIANA:

Pileated woodpecker, woodcock, ruffed grouse, pigeon hawk, duck hawk.—(Amos W. Butler, Indianapolis.)

In northern and northwestern Indiana, a perpetual close season and rigid protection have enabled the almost-extinct pinnated grouse to breed up to a total number now estimated by Game Commissioner Miles and his wardens at 10,000 birds. This is a gratifying illustration of what can be done in bringing back an almost-vanished species. The good example of Indiana should be followed by every state that still possesses a remnant of prairie-chickens, or other grouse.

IOWA:

Pinnated grouse, wood-duck. Notwithstanding an invasion of Jasper County, Iowa, in the winter of 1911-12 by hundreds of pinnated grouse, such as had not been known in 20 years, this gives no ground to hope that the future of the species is worth a moment's purchase. The winter migration came from the Dakotas, and was believed to be due to the extra severe winter, and the scarcity of food. Commenting on this unprecedented occurrence, J.L. Sloanaker in the "Wilson Bulletin" No. 78, says:

"In the opinion of many, the formerly abundant prairie chicken is doomed to early extinction. Many will testify to their abundance in those years [in South Dakota, 1902] when the great land movement was taking place. The influx of hungry settlers, together with an occasional bad season, decimated their ranks. They were eaten by the farmers, both in and out of season. Driven from pillar to post, with no friends and insufficient food,—what else then can be expected?"

Mr. F.C. Pellett, of Atlantic, Iowa, says: "Unless ways can be devised of rearing these birds in the domestic state, the prairie hen in my opinion is doomed to early extinction."

The older inhabitants here say that there is not one song-bird in summer where there used to be ten.—(G.H. Nicol, in Outdoor Life March, 1912.)

KANSAS:

To all of those named in my previous list that are not actually extinct, I might add the prairie hen, the lesser prairie hen, as well as the prairie sharp-tailed grouse and the wood-duck. Such water birds as the avocets, godwits, greater yellow-legs, long-billed curlew and Eskimo curlew are becoming very rare. All the water birds that are killed as game birds have been greatly reduced in numbers during the past 25 years. I have not seen a wood-duck in 5 years. The prairie chicken has entirely disappeared from this locality. A few are still seen in the sand hills of western Kansas, and they are still comparatively abundant along the extreme southwestern line, and in northern Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.—(C.H. Smyth, Wichita.)

Yellow-legged plover, golden plover; Hudsonian and Eskimo curlew, prairie chicken.—(James Howard, Wichita.)

LOUISIANA:

Ivory-billed woodpecker, butterball, bufflehead. The wood-duck is greatly diminishing every year, and if not completely protected, ten years hence no wood-duck will be found in Louisiana.—(Frank M. Miller, and G.E. Beyer, New Orleans.)

Ivory-billed woodpecker, sandhill crane, whooping crane, pinnated grouse, American and snowy egret where unprotected.—(E.A. McIlhenny, Avery Island.)

MAINE:

Wood-duck, upland plover, purple martin, house wren, pileated woodpecker, bald eagle, yellow-legs, great blue heron, Canada goose, redhead and canvasback duck.—(John F. Sprague, Dover.)

Puffin, Leach's petrel, eider duck, laughing gull, great blue heron, fish-hawk and bald eagle.—(Arthur H. Norton, Portland.)

MARYLAND:

Curlew, pileated woodpecker, summer duck, snowy heron. No record of sandhill crane for the last 35 years. Greater yellow-leg is much scarcer than formerly, also Bartramian sandpiper. The only two birds which show an increase in the past few years are the robin and lesser scaup. General protection of the robin has caused its increase; stopping of spring shooting in the North has probably caused the increase of the latter. As a general proposition I think I can say that all birds are becoming scarcer in this state, as we have laws that do not protect, little enforcement of same, no revenue for bird protection and too little public interest. We are working to change all this, but it comes slowly. The public fails to respond until the birds are 'most gone, and we have a pretty good lot of game still left. The members of the Order Gallinae are only holding their own where privately protected. The members of the Plover Family and what are known locally as shore birds are still plentiful on the shores of Chincoteague and Assateague, and although they do not breed there as formerly, so far as I know there are no species exterminated.—(Talbott Denmead, Baltimore.)

MASSACHUSETTS:

Wood-duck, hooded merganser, blue-winged teal, upland plover; curlew (perhaps already gone); red-tailed hawk (I have not seen one in Middlesex County for several years); great horned owl (almost gone in my county, Middlesex); house wren. The eave swallows and purple martins are fast deserting eastern Massachusetts and the barn swallows steadily diminishing in numbers. The bald eagle should perhaps be included here. I seldom see or hear of it now.—(William Brewster, Cambridge.)

Upland plover, woodcock, wood-duck (recent complete protection is helping these somewhat), heath hen, piping plover, golden plover, a good many song and insectivorous birds are apparently decreasing rather rapidly; for instance, the eave swallow.—(William P. Wharton, Groton.)

MICHIGAN:

Wood-duck, limicolae, woodcock, sandhill crane. The great whooping crane is not a wild bird, but I think it is now practically extinct. Many of our warblers and song birds are now exceedingly rare. Ruffed grouse greatly decreased during the past 10 years.—(W.B. Mershon, Saginaw.)

MINNESOTA:

The sandhill crane has been killed by sportsmen. I have not seen one in three years. Where there were, a few years ago, thousands of blue herons, egrets, wood ducks, redbirds, and Baltimore orioles, all those birds are now almost extinct in this state. They are being killed by Austrians and Italians, who slaughter everything that flies or moves. Robins, too, will be a rarity if more severe penalties are not imposed. I have seized 22 robins, 1 pigeon hawk, 1 crested log-cock, 4 woodpeckers and 1 grosbeak in one camp, at the Lertonia mine, all being prepared for eating. I have also caught them preparing and eating sea gulls, terns, blue heron, egret and even the bittern. I have secured 128 convictions since the first of last September.—(George E. Wood, Game Warden, Hibbing, Minnesota.)

From Robert Page Lincoln, Minneapolis.—Partridge are waning fast, quail gradually becoming extinct, prairie chickens almost extinct. Duck-shooting is rare. The gray squirrel is fast becoming extinct in Minnesota. Mink are going fast, and fur-bearing animals generally are becoming extinct. The game is passing so very rapidly that it will soon be a thing of the forgotten past. The quail are suffering most. The falling off is amazing, and inconceivable to one who has not looked it up. Duck-shooting is rare, the clubs are idle for want of birds. What ducks come down fly high, being harassed coming down from the north. I consider the southern Minnesota country practically cleaned out.

MISSOURI:

The birds threatened with extermination are the American woodcock, wood-duck, snowy egret, pinnated grouse, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, golden eagle, bald eagle, pileated woodpecker.

MONTANA:

Blue grouse.—(Henry Avare, Helena.)

Sage grouse, prairie and Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, trumpeter swan, Canada goose, in fact, most of the water-fowl. The sickle-billed curlew, of which there were many a few years ago, is becoming scarce. There are no more golden or black-bellied plover in these parts.—(Harry P. Stanford, Kalispell.)

Curlew, Franklin grouse (fool hen) and sage grouse.—W.R. Felton, Miles City.

Sage grouse.—(L.A. Huffman, Miles City.)

Ptarmigan, wood-duck, sharp-tailed grouse, sage grouse, fool hen and plover. All game birds are becoming scarce as the country becomes settled and they are confined to uninhabited regions.—(Prof. M.J. Elrod, Missoula.)

NEBRASKA:

Grouse, prairie chicken and quail.—(H.N. Miller, Lincoln.)

Whistling swan.—(Dr. S.G. Towne, Omaha.)

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Wood-duck and upland plover.

NEW YORK:

Quail, woodcock, upland plover, golden plover, black-bellied plover, willet, dowitcher, red-breasted sandpiper, long-billed curlew, wood-duck, purple martin, redheaded woodpecker, mourning dove; gray squirrel, otter.

NEW JERSEY:

Ruffed grouse, teal, canvasback, red-head duck, widgeon, and all species of shore birds, the most noticeable being black-bellied plover, dowitcher, golden plover, killdeer, sickle-bill curlew, upland plover and English snipe; also the mourning dove.—(James M. Stratton and Ernest Napier, Trenton.)

Upland plover, apparently killdeer, egret, wood-duck, woodcock, and probably others.—(B.S. Bowdish, Demarest.)

NORTH CAROLINA:

Forster's tern, oystercatcher, egret and snowy egret.—(T. Gilbert Pearson, Sec. Nat. Asso. Audubon Societies.)

Ruffed grouse rapidly disappearing; bobwhite becoming scarce.—(E.L. Ewbank, Hendersonville.)

Perhaps American and snowy egret. If long-billed curlew is not extinct, it seems due to become so. No definite, reliable record of it later than 1885.—(H.H. Brimley, Raleigh.)

NORTH DAKOTA:

Wood-duck, prairie hen, upland plover, sharp-tailed grouse, canvas-back, pinnated and ruffed grouse, double-crested cormorant, blue heron, long-billed curlew, whooping crane and white pelican.—(W.B. Bell, Agricultural College.)

Upland plover, marbled godwit, Baird's sparrow, chestnut-collared longspur.—(Alfred Eastgate, Tolna.)

OHIO:

White heron, pileated woodpecker (if not already extinct). White heron reported a number of times last year; occurrences in Sandusky, Huron, Ashtabula and several other counties during 1911. These birds would doubtless rapidly recruit under a proper federal law.—(Paul North, Cleveland.)

Turtle dove, quail, red-bird, wren, hummingbird, wild canary [goldfinch] and blue bird.—(Walter C. Staley, Dayton.)

OKLAHOMA:

Pinnated grouse.—(J.C. Clark); otter, kit fox, black-footed ferret.—(G.W. Stevens.)

OREGON:

American egret, snowy egret.—(W.L. Finley, Portland.)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Virginia partridge and woodcock.—(Arthur Chapman.)

Wood-duck, least bittern, phalarope, woodcock, duck hawk and barn swallow.—(Dr. Chas. B. Penrose.)

Wild turkey; also various transient and straggling water birds.—(Witmer Stone.)

RHODE ISLAND:

Wood-duck, knot, greater yellow-legs, upland plover, golden plover, piping plover, great horned owl.—(Harry S. Hathaway, South Auburn.)

SOUTH CAROLINA:

Wood duck, abundant 6 years ago, now almost gone. Wild turkey (abundant up to 1898); woodcock, upland plover, Hudsonian curlew, Carolina rail, Virginia rail, clapper rail and coot. Black bear verging on extinction, opossum dwindling rapidly.—(James H. Rice Jr., Summerville.)

SOUTH DAKOTA:

Prairie chicken and quail are most likely to become extinct in the near future.—(W.F. Bancroft, Watertown.)

TEXAS:

Wild turkey and prairie chickens.—(J.D. Cox, Austin.)

Plover, all species; curlew, cardinal, road-runner, woodcock, wood-duck, canvas-back, cranes, all the herons; wild turkey; quail, all varieties; prairie chicken and Texas guan.—(Capt. M.B. Davis, Waco.)

Curlew, very rare; plover, very rare; antelope. (Answer applies to the Panhandle of Texas.—Chas. Goodnight.)

Everything [is threatened with extinction] save the dove, which is a migrating bird. Antelope nearly all gone.—(Col. O.C. Guessaz, San Antonio.)

UTAH:

Our wild birds are well protected, and there are none that are threatened with extinction. They are increasing.—(Fred. W. Chambers, State Game Warden, Salt Lake City.)

VERMONT:

If all states afforded as good protection as does Vermont, none; but migrating birds like woodcock are now threatened.—(John W. Tilcomb, State Game Warden, Lyndonville.)

VIRGINIA:

Pheasants (ruffed grouse), wild turkey and other game birds are nearly extinct. A few bears remain, and deer in small numbers in remote sections. In fact, all animals show great reduction in numbers, owing to cutting down forests, and constant gunning.—(L.T. Christian, Richmond.)

WEST VIRGINIA:

Wood-duck, wild turkey, northern raven, dickcissel.—(Rev. Earle A. Brooks, Weston.)

Wild turkeys are very scarce, also ducks. Doves, once numerous, now almost nil. Eagles, except a few in remote fastnesses. Many native song-birds are retreating before the English sparrow.—(William Perry Brown, Glenville.)

Wood-duck and wild turkey.—(J.A. Viquesney, Belington.)

WISCONSIN:

Double-crested cormorant, upland plover, white pelican, long-billed curlew, lesser snow goose, Hudsonian curlew, sandhill crane, golden plover, woodcock, dowitcher and long-billed duck; spruce grouse, knot, prairie sharp-tailed grouse, marbled godwit and bald eagle. All these, formerly abundant, must now be called rare in Wisconsin.—(Prof. George E. Wagner, Madison.)

Common tern, knot, American white pelican, Hudsonian godwit, trumpeter swan, long-billed curlew, snowy heron, Hudsonian curlew, American avocet, prairie sharp-tailed grouse, dowitcher, passenger pigeon. Long-billed dowitcher and northern hairy woodpecker.—(Henry L. Ward, Milwaukee Public Museum.)

Wood-duck, ruddy duck, black mallard, grebe or hell-diver, tern and woodcock.—(Fred. Gerhardt, Madison.)

WYOMING:

Sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse are becoming extinct, both in Wyoming and North Dakota. Sheridan and Johnson Counties (Wyoming) have sage grouse protected until 1915. The miners (mostly foreigners) are out after rabbits at all seasons. To them everything that flies, walks or swims, large enough to be seen, is a "rabbit." They are even worse than the average sheep-herder, as he will seldom kill a bird brooding her young, but to one of those men, a wren or creeper looks like a turkey. Antelope, mountain sheep and grizzly bears are going, fast! The moose season opens in 1915, for a 30 days open season, then close season until 1920.—(Howard Eaton, Wolf.)

Sage grouse, blue grouse, curlew, sandhill crane, porcupine practically extinct; wolverine and pine marten nearly all gone.—(S.N. Leek, Jackson's Hole.)



CANADA

ALBERTA:

Swainson's buzzard and sandhill crane are now practically extinct. Elk and antelope will soon be as extinct as the buffalo.—(Arthur G. Wooley-Dod, Calgary.)

BRITISH COLUMBIA:

Wild fowl are in the greatest danger in the southern part of the Province, especially the wood-duck. Otherwise birds are increasing rather than otherwise, especially the small non-game birds. The sea otter is almost extinct.—(A. Bryan Williams, Provincial Game Warden, Vancouver.)

MANITOBA:

Whooping crane, wood-duck and golden plover. Other species begin to show a marked increase, due to our stringent protective measures. For example, the pinnated grouse and sharp-tailed grouse are more plentiful than in 15 years. Prong-horned antelope and wolf are threatened with extinction.—(J.P. Turner, Winnipeg.)

The game birds indigenous to this Province are fairly plentiful. Though the prairie chicken was very scarce some few years ago, these birds have become very plentiful again, owing to the strict enforcement of our present "Game Act." The elk are in danger of becoming extinct if they are not stringently guarded. Beaver and otter were almost extinct some few years ago, but are now on the increase, owing to a strict enforcement of the "Game Act."—(Charles Barber, Winnipeg.)

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.

* * * * *

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.

The duties of the present hour, that fairly thrust themselves into our faces and will not be put aside, are these:

First,—To save valuable species from extermination!

Second,—To preserve a satisfactory representation of our once rich fauna, to hand down to Posterity.

Third,—To protect the farmer and fruit grower from the enormous losses that the destruction of our insectivorous and rodent-eating birds is now inflicting upon both the producer and consumer.

Fourth,—To protect our forests, by protecting the birds that keep down the myriads of insects that are destructive to trees and shrubs.

Fifth,—To preserve to the future sportsmen of America enough game and fish that they may have at least a taste of the legitimate pursuit of game in the open that has made life so interesting to the sportsmen of to-day.

For any civilized nation to exterminate valuable and interesting species of wild mammals, birds or fishes is more than a disgrace. It is a crime! We have no right, legal, moral or commercial, to exterminate any valuable or interesting species; because none of them belong to us, to exterminate or not, as we please.

For the people of any civilized nation to permit the slaughter of the wild birds that protect its crops, its fruits and its forests from the insect hordes, is worse than folly. It is sheer orneryness and idiocy. People who are either so lazy or asinine as to permit the slaughter of their best friends deserve to have their crops destroyed and their forests ravaged. They deserve to pay twenty cents a pound for their cotton when the boll weevil has cut down the normal supply.

It is very desirable that we should now take an inventory of the forces that have been, and to-day are, active in the destruction of our wild birds, mammals, and game fishes. During the past ten years a sufficient quantity of facts and figures has become available to enable us to secure a reasonably full and accurate view of the whole situation. As we pause on our hill-top, and survey the field of carnage, we find that we are reviewing the Army of Destruction!

It is indeed a motley array. We see true sportsmen beside ordinary gunners, game-hogs and meat hunters; handsome setter dogs are mixed up with coyotes, cats, foxes and skunks; and well-gowned women and ladies' maids are jostled by half-naked "poor-white" and black-negro "plume hunters."

Verily, the destruction of wild life makes strange companions.

Let us briefly review the several army corps that together make up the army of the destroyers. Space in this volume forbids an extended notice of each. Unfortunately it is impossible to segregate some of these classes, and number each one, for they merge together too closely for that; but we can at least describe the several classes that form the great mass of destroyers.

THE GENTLEMEN SPORTSMEN.—These men are the very bone and sinew of wild life preservation. These are the men who have red blood in their veins, who annually hear the red gods calling, who love the earth, the mountains, the woods, the waters and the sky. These are the men to whom "the bag" is a matter of small importance, and to whom "the bag-limit" has only academic interest; because in nine cases out of ten they do not care to kill all that the law allows. The tenth and exceptional time is when the bag limit is "one." A gentleman sportsman is a man who protects game, stops shooting when he has "enough"—without reference to the legal bag-limit, and whenever a species is threatened with extinction, he conscientiously refrains from shooting it.

The true sportsmen of the world are the men who once were keen in the stubble or on the trail, but who have been halted by the general slaughter and the awful decrease of game. Many of them, long before a hair has turned gray, have hung up their guns forever, and turned to the camera. These are the men who are willing to hand out checks, or to leave their mirth and their employment and go to the firing line at their state capitols, to lock horns with the bull-headed killers of wild life who recognize no check or limit save the law.

These are the men who have done the most to put upon our statute books the laws that thus far have saved some of our American game from total annihilation, and who (so we firmly believe) will be chiefly instrumental in tightening the lines of protection around the remnant. These are the men who are making and stocking game preserves, public and private, great and small.



If you wish to know some of these men, I will tell you where to find a goodly number of them; and when you find them, you will also find that they are men you would enjoy camping with! Look in the membership lists of the Boone and Crockett Club, Camp-Fire Club of America, the Lewis and Clark Club of Pittsburgh, the New York State League, the Shikar Club of London, the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the British Empire, the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association, the Springfield (Mass.) Sportsmen's Association, the Camp-Fire Clubs of Detroit and Chicago, and the North American Fish and Game Protective Association.

There are other bodies of sportsmen that I would like to name, were space available, but to set down here a complete list is quite impossible.

The best and the most of the game-protective laws now in force in the United States and Canada were brought into existence through the initiative and efforts of the real sportsmen of those two nations. But for their activity, exerted on the right side, the settled portion of North America would to-day be an utterly gameless land! Even though the sportsmen have taken their toll of the wilds, they have made the laws that have saved a remnant of the game until 1912.

For all that, however, every man who still shoots game is a soldier in the Army of Destruction! There is no blinking that fact. Such men do not stand on the summit with the men who now protect the game and do not shoot at all! The millions of men who do not shoot, and who also do nothing to protect or preserve wild life, do not count! In this warfare they are merely ciphers in front of the real figures.

THE GUNNERS, WHO KILL TO THE LIMIT.—Out of the enormous mass of men who annually take up arms against the remnant of wild life, and are called "sportsmen," I believe that only one out of every 500 conscientiously stops shooting when game becomes scarce, and extinction is impending. All of the others feel that it is right and proper to kill all the game that they can kill up to the legal bag limit. It is the reasoning of Shylock:

"Justice demands it, and the law doth give it!"

Especially is this true of the men who pay their one dollar per year for a resident hunting license, and feel that in doing so they have done a great Big Thing!

This is a very deadly frame of mind. Ethically it is entirely wrong; and at least two million men and boys who shoot American game must be shown that it is wrong! This is the spirit of Extermination, clothed in the robes of Law and Justice.

Whenever and wherever game birds are so scarce that a good shot who hunts hard during a day in the fields finds only three or four birds, he should stop shooting at once, and devote his mind and energies to the problem of bringing back the game! It is strange that conditions do not make this duty clear to every conscientious citizen.

The Shylock spirit which prompts a man to kill all that "the law allows" is a terrible scourge to the wild life of America, and to the world at large. It is the spirit of extermination according to law. Even the killing of game for the market is not so great a scourge as this; for this spirit searches out the game in every nook and cranny of the world, and spares not. In effect it says: "If the law is defective, it is right for me to take every advantage of it! I do not need to have any conscience in the matter outside the letter of the law."

The extent to which this amazing spirit prevails is positively awful. You will find it among pseudo game-protectors to a paralyzing extent! It is the great gunner's paradox, and it pervades this country from corner to corner. No: there is no use in trying to "educate" the mass of the hunters of America out of it, as a means of saving the game; for positively it can not be done! Do not waste time in trying it. If you rely upon it, you will be doing a great wrong to wild life, and promoting extermination. The only remedy is sweeping laws, for long close seasons, for a great many species. Forget the paltry dollar-a-year license money. The license fees never represent more than a tenth part of the value of the game that is killed under licenses.

The savage desire to kill "all that the law allows" often is manifested in men in whom we naturally expect to find a very different spirit. By way of illumination, I offer three cases out of the many that I could state.

Case No. 1. The Duck Breeder.—A gentleman of my acquaintance has spent several years and much money in breeding wild ducks. From my relations with him, I had acquired the belief that he was a great lover of ducks, and at least wished all species well. One whizzing cold day in winter he called upon me, and stated that he had been duck-hunting; which surprised me. He added, "I have just spent two days on Great South Bay, and I made a great killing. In the two days I got ninety-four ducks!"

I said, "How could you do it,—caring for wild ducks as you do?"

"Well, I had hunted ducks twice before on Great South Bay and didn't have very good luck; but this time the cold weather drove the ducks in, and I got square with them!"

Case No. 2. The Ornithologist.—A short time ago the news was published in Forest and Stream, that a well-known ornithologist had distinguished himself in one of the mid-western states by the skill he had displayed in bagging thirty-four ducks in one day, greatly to the envy of the natives; and if this shoe fits any American naturalist, he is welcome to put it on and wear it.

Case No. 3. The Sportsman.—A friend of mine in the South is the owner of a game preserve in which wild ducks are at times very numerous. Once upon a time he was visited by a northern sportsmen who takes a deep and abiding interest in the preservation of game. The sportsman was invited to go out duck-shooting; ducks being then in season there. He said:

"Yes, I will go; and I want you to put me in a place where I can kill a hundred ducks in a day! I never have done that yet, and I would like to do it, once!"

"All right," said my friend, "I can put you in such a place; and if you can shoot well enough, you can kill a hundred ducks in a day."

The effort was made in all earnestness. There was much shooting, but few were the ducks that fell before it. In concluding this story my friend remarked in a tone of disgust:

"All the game-preserving sportsmen that come to me are just like that! They want to kill all they can kill!"

There is a blood-test by which to separate the conscientious sportsmen from the mere gunners. Here it is:

A sportsman stops shooting when game becomes scarce; and he does not object to long-close-season laws; but

A gunner believes in killing "all that the law allows;" and he objects to long close seasons!

I warrant that whenever and wherever this test is applied it will separate the sheep from the goats. It applies in all America, all Asia and Africa, and in Greenland, with equal force.



THE GAME-HOG.—This term was coined by G.O. Shields, in 1897, when he was editor and owner of Recreation Magazine, and it has come into general use. It has been recognized by a judge on the bench as being an appropriate term to apply to all men who selfishly slaughter wild game beyond the limits of decency. Although it is a harsh term, and was mercilessly used by Mr. Shields in his fierce war on the men who slaughtered game for "sport," it has jarred at least a hundred thousand men into their first realization of the fact that to-day there is a difference between decency and indecency in the pursuit of game. The use of the term has done very great good; but, strange to say, it has made for Mr. Shields a great many enemies outside the ranks of the game-hogs themselves! From this one might fairly suppose that there is such a thing as a sympathetic game-hog!

One thing at least is certain. During a period of about six years, while his war with the game-hogs was on, from Maine to California, Mr. Shields's name became a genuine terror to excessive killers of game; and it is reasonably certain that his war saved a great number of game birds from the slaughter that otherwise would have overtaken them!

The number of armed men and boys who annually take the field in the United States in the pursuit of birds and quadrupeds, is enormous. People who do not shoot have no conception of it; and neither do they comprehend the mechanical perfection and fearful deadliness of the weapons used. This feature of the situation can hardly be realized until some aspect of it is actually seen.

I have been at some pains to collect the latest figures showing the number of hunting licenses issued in 1911, but the total is incomplete. In some states the figures are not obtainable, and in some states there are no hunters' license laws. The figures of hunting licenses issued in 1911 that I have obtained from official sources are set forth below.

THE UNITED STATES ARMY OF DESTRUCTION

Hunting Licenses issued in 1911

Alabama 5,090 Montana 59,291 California 138,689 Nebraska 39,402 Colorado 41,058 New Hampshire 33,542 Connecticut 19,635 New Jersey 61,920 Idaho 50,342 New Mexico 7,000 Illinois 192,244 New York 150,222 Indiana 54,813 Rhode Island 6,541 Iowa 91,000 South Dakota 31,054 Kansas 44,069 Utah 27,800 Louisiana 76,000 Vermont 31,762 Maine 2,552 Washington, about 40,000 Massachusetts 45,039 Wisconsin 138,457 Michigan 22,323 Wyoming 9,721 Missouri 66,662 ————- Total number of regularly licensed gunners 1,486,228

The average for the twenty-seven states that issued licenses as shown above is 55,046 for each state.

Now, the twenty-one states issuing no licenses, or not reporting, produced in 1911 fully as many gunners per capita as did the other twenty-seven states. Computed fairly on existing averages they must have turned out a total of 1,155,966 gunners, making for all the United States 2,642,194 armed men and boys warring upon the remnant of game in 1911. We are not counting the large number of lawless hunters who never take out licenses. Now, is Mr. Beard's picture a truthful presentation, or not?

New York with only deer, ruffed grouse, shore-birds, ducks and a very few woodcock to shoot annually puts into the field 150,222 armed men. In 1909 they killed about 9,000 deer!

New Jersey, spending $30,000 in 1912 in efforts to restock her covers with game, and with a population of 2,537,167, sent out in 1911 a total army of 61,920 well-armed gunners. How can any of her game survive?

New Hampshire, with only 430,572 population, has 33,542 licensed hunters,—equal to thirty-three regiments of full strength!

Vermont, with 355,956 people, sends out annually an army of 31,762 men who hunt according to law; and in 1910 they killed 3,649 deer.

Utah, with only 373,351 population, had 27,800 men in the field after her very small remnant of game! How can any wild thing of Utah escape?

Montana, population 376,053, had in 1911 an army of 59,291 well-armed men, warring chiefly upon the big game, and swiftly exterminating it.

How long can any of the big game stand before the army of two and one-half million well-armed men, eager and keen to kill, and out to get an equivalent for their annual expenditure in guns, ammunition and other expenses?

In addition to the hunters themselves, they are assisted by thousands of expert guides, thousands of horses, thousands of dogs, hundreds of automobiles and hundreds of thousands of tents. Each big-game hunter has an experienced guide who knows the haunts and habits of the game, the best feeding grounds, the best trails, and everything else that will aid the hunter in taking the game at a disadvantage and destroying it. The big-game rifles are of the highest power, the longest range, the greatest accuracy and the best repeating mechanism that modern inventive genius can produce. It is said that in Wyoming the Maxim silencer is now being used. England has produced a weapon of a new type, called "the scatter rifle," which is intended for use on ducks. The best binoculars are used in searching out the game, and horses carry the hunters and guides as near as possible to the game. For bears, baits are freely used, and in the pursuit of pumas, dogs are employed to the limit of the available supply.

The deadliness of the automobile in hunting already is so apparent that North Dakota has wisely and justly forbidden their use by law, (1911). The swift machine enables city gunmen to penetrate game regions they could not reach with horses, and hunt through from four to six localities per day, instead of one only, as formerly. The use of automobiles in hunting should be everywhere prohibited.

Every appliance and assistance that money can buy, the modern sportsman secures to help him against the game. The game is beset during its breeding season by various wild enemies,—foxes, cats, wolves, pumas, lynxes, eagles, and many other predatory species. The only help that it receives is in the form of an annual close season—which thus far has saved in America only a few local moose, white-tailed deer and a few game birds, from steady and sure extermination.

The bag limits on which vast reliance is placed to preserve the wild game, are a fraud, a delusion and a snare! The few local exceptions only prove the generality of the rule. In every state, without one single exception, the bag limits are far too high, and the laws are of deadly liberality. In many states, the bag limit laws on birds are an absolute dead letter. Fancy the 125 wardens of New York enforcing the bag-limit laws on 150,000 gunners! It is this horrible condition that is enabling the licensed army of destruction to get in its deadly work on the game, all over the world. In America, the over-liberality of the laws are to blame for two-thirds of the carnival of slaughter, and the successful evasions of the law are responsible for the other third.



The only remedy for the present extermination of game according to law that so rapidly and so furiously is proceeding all over the United States, Canada, Alaska, and Africa, is ten-year close seasons on all the species threatened with extinction, and immensely reduced open seasons and bag limits on all the others.

Will the people who still have wild game take heed now, and clamp down the brakes, hard and fast before it is too late, or will they have their game exterminated?

Shall we have five-year close seasons, or close seasons of 500 years? We must take our choice.

Shall we hand down to our children a gameless continent, with all the shame that such a calamity will entail?

We have got to answer these questions like men, or they will soon be answered for us by the extermination of the wild life. For twenty-five years we have been smarting under the disgrace of the extermination of our bison millions. Let us not repeat the dose through the destruction of other species.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

THE GUERRILLAS OF DESTRUCTION

We have now to deal with THE GUERRILLAS OF DESTRUCTION.

In warfare, a guerrilla, or bushwhacker, is an armed man who recognizes none of the rules of civilized warfare, and very often has no commander. In France he is called a "franc-tireur," or free-shooter. The guerrilla goes out to live on the country, to skulk, to war on the weak, and never attack save from ambush, or when the odds clearly are on his side. His military status is barely one remove from that of the spy.

The meat-shooters who harry the game and other wild life in order to use it as a staple food supply; the Italians, negroes and others who shoot song-birds as food; the plume-hunters and the hide-and-tusk hunters all over the world are the guerrillas of the Army of Destruction. Let us consider some of these grand divisions in detail.

Here is an inexorable law of Nature, to which there are no exceptions:

No wild species of bird, mammal, reptile or fish can withstand exploitation for commercial purposes.

The men who pursue wild creatures for the money or other value there is in them, never give up. They work at slaughter when other men are enjoying life, or are asleep. If they are persistent, no species on which they fix the Evil Eye escapes extermination at their hands.

Does anyone question this statement? If so let him turn backward and look at the lists of dead and dying species.

THE DIVISION OF MEAT-SHOOTERS contains all men who sordidly shoot for the frying-pan,—to save bacon and beef at the expense of the public, or for the markets. There are a few wilderness regions so remote and so difficult of access that the transportation of meat into them is a matter of much difficulty and expense. There are a very few men in North America who are justified in "living off the country," for short periods. The genuine prospectors always have been counted in this class; but all miners who are fully located, all lumbermen and railway-builders certainly are not in the prospector's class. They are abundantly able to maintain continuous lines of communication for the transit of beef and mutton.

Of all the meat-shooters, the market-gunners who prey on wild fowl and ground game birds for the big-city markets are the most deadly to wild life. Enough geese, ducks, brant, quail, ruffed grouse, prairie chickens, heath hens and wild pigeons have been butchered by gunners and netters for "the market" to have stocked the whole world. No section containing a good supply of game has escaped. In the United States the great slaughtering-grounds have been Cape Cod; Great South Bay, New York; Currituck Sound, North Carolina; Marsh Island, Louisiana; the southwest corner of Louisiana; the Sunk Lands of Arkansas; the lake regions of Minnesota; the prairies of the whole middle West; Great Salt Lake; the Klamath Lake region (Oregon) and southern California.



The output of this systematic bird slaughter has supplied the greedy game markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. The history of this industry, its methods, its carnage, its profits and its losses would make a volume, but we can not enter upon it here. Beyond reasonable doubt, this awful traffic in dead game is responsible for at least three-fourths of the slaughter that has reduced our game birds to a mere remnant of their former abundance. There is no influence so deadly to wild life as that of the market gunner who works six days a week, from sunrise until sunset, hunting down and killing every game bird that he can reach with a choke-bore gun.

During the past five years, several of the once-great killing grounds have been so thoroughly "shot out" that they have ceased to hold their former rank. This is the case with the Minnesota Lakes, the Sunk Lands of Arkansas, the Klamath Lakes of Oregon, and I think it is also true of southern California. The Klamath Lakes have been taken over by the Government as a bird refuge. Currituck Sound, at the northeastern corner of North Carolina, has been so bottled up by the Bayne law of New York State that Currituck's greatest market has been cut off. Last year only one-half the usual number of ducks and geese were killed; and already many "professional" duck and brant shooters have abandoned the business because the commission merchants no longer will buy dead birds.



Very many enormous bags of game have been made in a day by market gunners: but rarely have they published any of their records. The greatest kill of which I ever have heard occurred under the auspices of the Glenn County Club, in southern California, on February 5, 1906. Two men, armed with automatic shot-guns, fired five shots apiece, and got ten geese out of one flock. In one hour they killed two hundred and eighteen geese, and their bag for the day was four hundred and fifty geese! The shooter who wrote the story for publication (on February 12, at Willows, Glenn County, California) said: "It being warm weather, the birds had to be shipped at once in order to keep them from spoiling." A photograph was made of the "one hour's slaughter" of two hundred and eighteen geese, and it was published in a western magazine with "C.H.B.'s" story, nearly all of which will be found in Chapter XV.

The reasons why market shooting is so deadly destructive to wild life are not obscure.

The true sportsman hunts during a very few days only each year. The market gunners shoot early and late, six days a week, month after month. When game is abundant, the price is low, and a great quantity must be killed in order to make it pay well. When game is scarce, the market prices are high, and the shooter makes the utmost exertions to find the last of the game in order to secure the "big money."

When game is protected by law, thousands of people with money desire it for their tables, just the same, and are willing to pay fabulous prices for what they want, when they want it. Many a dealer is quite willing to run the risk of fines, because fines don't really hurt; they are only annoying. The dealer wishes to make the big profit, and retain his customers; "and besides," he reasons, "if I don't supply him some one else will; so what is the difference?"

When game is scarce, prices high and the consumer's money ready, there are a hundred tricks to which shooters and dealers willingly resort to ship and receive unlawful game without detection. It takes the very best kind of game wardens,—genuine detectives, in fact,—to ferret out these cunning illegal practices, and catch lawbreakers "with the goods on them," so that they can be punished. Mind you, convictions can not be secured at both ends of the line save by the most extraordinary good fortune, and usually the shooter and shipper escape, even when the dealer is apprehended and fined.



Here are some of the methods that have been practiced in the past in getting illegal game into the New York market:

Ruffed grouse and quail have both been shipped in butter firkins, marked "butter"; and latterly, butter has actually been packed solidly on top of the birds.

Ruffed grouse and quail very often have been shipped in egg crates, marked "eggs." They have been shipped in trunks and suit cases,—a very common method for illegal game birds, all over the United States. In Oklahoma when a man refuses to open his trunk for a game warden, the warden joyously gets out his brace and bitt, and bores an inch hole into the lower story of the trunk. If dead birds are there, the tell-tale auger quickly reveals them.

Three years ago, I was told that certain milk-wagons on Long Island made daily collections of dead ducks intended for the New York market, and the drivers kindly shipped them by express from the end of the route.

Once upon a time, a New York man gave notice that on a certain date he would be in a certain town in St. Lawrence County, New York, with a palace horse-car, "to buy horses." Car and man appeared there as advertised. Very ostentatiously, he bought one horse, and had it taken aboard the car before the gaze of the admiring populace. At night, when the A.P. had gone to bed, many men appeared, and into the horseless end of that car, they loaded thousands of ruffed grouse. The game warden who described the incident to me said: "That man pulled out for New York with one horse and half a car load of ruffed grouse!"

Whenever a good market exists for the sale of game, as sure as the world that market will be supplied. Twenty-six states forbid by law the sale of their own "protected" game, but twenty of them do not expressly prohibit the sale of game stolen from neighboring states! That is a very, very weak point in the laws of all those states. A child can see how it works. Take Pittsburgh as a case in point.

In the winter and spring of 1912 the State Game Commission of Pennsylvania found that quail and ruffed grouse were being sold in Pittsburgh, in large quantities. The state laws were well enforced, and it was believed that the birds were not being killed in Pennsylvania. Some other state was being robbed!

The Game Commission went to work, and in a very short time certain game-dealers of Pittsburgh were arrested. At first they tried to bluff their way out of their difficulty, and even went as far as to bring charges against the game-warden whom the Commission had instructed to buy some of their illegal game, and pay for it. But the net of the law tightened upon them so quickly and so tightly that they threw up their hands and begged for mercy.

It was found that those Pittsburgh game-dealers were selling quail and grouse that had been stolen in thousands, from the state of Kentucky! Between the state game laws, working in lovely harmony with the Lacey federal law that prohibits the shipment of game illegally killed or sold, the whole bad business was laid bare, and signed confessions were promptly obtained from the shippers in Kentucky.

At that very time, a good bill for the better protection of her game was before the Kentucky legislature; and a certain member was vigorously opposing it, as he had successfully done in previous years. He was told that the state was being robbed, but refused to believe it. Then a signed confession was laid before him, bearing the name of the man who was instigating his opposition,—his friend,—who confessed that he had illegally bought and shipped to Pittsburgh over 5,000 birds. The objector literally threw up his hands, and said, "I have been wrong! Let the bill go through!" And it went.



Before the passage of the Bayne law, New York City was a "fence" for the sale of grouse illegally killed in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and I know not how many other states. The Bayne law stopped all that business, abruptly and forever; and if the ruffed grouse, quail and ducks of the Eastern States are offered for sale in Chicago, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Washington, the people of New York and Massachusetts can at least be assured that they are not to blame. Those two states now maintain no "fences" for the sale of game that has been stolen from other states. They have both set their houses in order, and set two examples for forty other states to follow.

The remedy for all this miserable game-stealing, law-breaking business is simple and easily obtained. Let each state of the United States and each province and Canada enact a Bayne law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all wild native game, and the thing is done! But nothing short of that will be really effective. It will not do at all to let state laws rest with merely forbidding the sale of game "protected by the State;" for that law is full of loop-holes. It does much good service, yes; but what earthly objection can there be in any state to the enactment of a law that is sweepingly effective, and which can not be evaded, save through the criminal connivance of officers of the law?

By way of illustration, to show what the sale of wild game means to the remnant of our game, and the wicked slaughter of non-game birds to which it leads, consider these figures:

DEAD BIRDS FOUND IN ONE COLD STORAGE HOUSE IN NEW YORK IN 1902.

Snow Buntings 8,058 Grouse 7,560 Sandpipers 7,607 Quail 4,385 Plover 5,218 Ducks 1,756 Snipe 7,003 Bobolinks 288 Yellow-legs 788 Woodcock 96

The fines for this lot, if imposed, would have amounted to $1,168,315.

Shortly after that seizure American quail became so scarce that in effect they totally disappeared from the banquet tables of New York. I can not recall having been served with one since 1903, but the little Egyptian quail can be legally imported and sold when officially tagged.

Few persons away from the firing line realize the far-reaching effects of the sale of wild game. Here are a few flashes from the searchlight:

At Hangkow, China, Mr. C. William Beebe found that during his visit in 1911, over 46,000 pheasants of various species were shipped from that port on one cold-storage steamer to the London market. And this when English pheasants were selling in the Covent Garden market at from two to three shillings each, for fresh birds!

In 1910, 1,200 ptarmigan from Norway, bound for the Chicago market, passed through the port of New York,—not by any means the first or the last shipment of the kind. The epicures of Chicago are being permitted to comb the game out of Norway.

In 1910, 70,000 dozen Egyptian quail were shipped to Europe from Alexandria, Egypt. Just why that species has not already been exterminated, is a zoological mystery; but extermination surely will come some day, and I think it will be in the near future.

The coast of China has been raked and scraped for wild ducks to ship to New York,—prior to the passage of the Bayne law! I have forgotten the figures that once were given me, but they were an astonishing number of thousands for the year.

The Division of Negroes and Poor Whites who kill song and other birds indiscriminately will be found in a separate chapter.

THE DIVISION OF "RESIDENT" GAME-BUTCHERS.—This refers to the men who live in the haunts of big game, where wardens are the most of the time totally absent, and where bucks, does and fawns of hoofed big game may be killed in season and out of season, with impunity. It includes guides, ranchmen, sheep-herders, cowboys, miners, lumbermen and floaters generally. In times past, certain taxidermists of Montana promoted the slaughter of wild bison in the Yellowstone Park, and it was a pair of rascally taxidermists who killed, or caused to be killed in Lost Park, in 1897, the very last bison of Colorado.

It seems to be natural for the minds of men who live in America in the haunts of big game to drift into the idea that the wild game around them is all theirs. Very few of them recognize the fact that every other man, woman and child in a given state or province has vested rights in its wild game. It is natural for a frontiersman to feel that because he is in the wilds he has a God-given right to live off the country; but to-day that idea is totally wrong! If some way can not be found to curb that all-pervading propensity among our frontiersmen, then we may as well bid all our open-field big game a long farewell; for the deadly "residents" surely will exterminate it, outside the game preserves. The "residents" are, in my opinion, about ten times more destructive than the sportsmen. A sportsman in quest of large game is in the field only from ten to thirty days; all his movements are known, and all his trophies are seen and counted. His killing is limited by law, and upon him the law is actually enforced. Often a resident hunts the whole twelve months of the year,—for food, for amusement, and for trophies to sell. Rarely does a game warden reach his cabin; because the wardens are few, the distances great and the frontier cabins are widely scattered.

Mr. Carl Pickhardt told me of a guide in Newfoundland who had a shed in the woods hanging full of bodies of caribou, and who admitted to him that while the law allowed him five caribou each year, he killed each year about twenty-five.

Mr. J.M. Phillips knows of a mountain in British Columbia, once well stocked with goats, on which the goats have been completely exterminated by one man who lives within easy striking distance of them, and who finds goat meat to his liking.

I have been reliably informed that in 1911, at Haha Lake, near Grande Bay, Saguenay District, P.Q., one family of six persons killed thirty-four woodland caribou and six moose. This meant the waste of about 14,000 pounds of good meat, and the death of several female animals.

In 1886 I knew a man named Owens who lived on the head of Sunday Creek, Montana, who told me that in 1884-5 he killed thirty-five mule deer for himself and family. The family ate as much as possible, the dogs ate all they could, and in the spring the remainder spoiled. Now there is not a deer, an antelope, or a sage grouse within fifty miles of that lifeless waste.

Here is a Montana object lesson on the frame of mind of the "resident" hunter, copied from Outdoor Life Magazine (Denver) for February, 1912. It is from a letter to the Editor, written by C.B. Davis.

November 27, 28, 29, and 30, 1911, will remain a red letter day with a half thousand men for years to come. These half thousand men gathered along the border of the Yellowstone National Park, near Gardiner, Montana, at a point known as Buffalo Flats, to exterminate elk. The snow had driven the elk down to the foothills, and Buffalo Flats is on the border of the park and outside the park. The elk entered this little valley for food. Like hungry wolves, shooters, not hunters, gathered along the border waiting to catch an elk off the "reservation" and kill it.

On November 27th about 1500 elk crossed the line, and the slaughter began. I have not the data of the number killed this day, but it was hundreds.

On the 28th, twenty-two stepped over and were promptly executed. Like Custer's band, not one escaped. On the evening of the 28th, 600 were sighted just over the line, and the army of 125 brave men entrenched themselves for the battle which was expected to open next morning. Before daylight of the 29th the battle began. The elk were over the line, feeding on Buffalo Flats. One hundred and twenty-five men poured bullets into this band of 600 elk till the ground was red with blood and strewn with carcasses, and in their madness they shot each other. One man was shot through the ear,—a close call; another received a bullet through his coat sleeve, and another was shot through the bowels and can't live.