It is not surprising, therefore, that birds of this family, with their limited powers of reproduction, melt away under the relentless warfare waged upon them. Until recent years shorebirds have had almost no protection. Thus, the species most in need of stringent protection have really had the least. No useful birds which lay only three or four eggs should be retained on the list of game birds. 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. 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. The insects eaten include the salt-marsh mosquito (Aedes sollicitans), for the suppression of which the State of New Jersey has gone to great expense. The nine species of shorebirds known to eat mosquitoes are:

Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus). Semipalmated sandpiper (Ereunetes pusillus). Wilson phalarope (Steganopus tricolor). Stilt sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus). Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus). Pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia maculata). Semipalmated plover (Aegialitis semipalmata). Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi). Least sandpiper (Pisobia minutilla).

Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested by mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests, the horse-flies. Adults and larvae of these flies have been found in the stomachs of the dowitcher, the pectoral sandpiper, the hudsonian godwit, and the killdeer. Two species of shorebirds, the killdeer and upland plover, still further befriend cattle by devouring the North American fever tick.

Among other fly larvae consumed are those of the crane flies (leather-jackets) devoured by the following species:

Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus). Pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia maculata). Wilson phalarope (Steganopus tricolor). Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi). Woodcock (Philohela minor). Upland plover (Bartramia longicauda). Jacksnipe (Gallinago delicata). Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus).

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. Severe local infestations of grasshoppers, frequently involving the destruction of many acres of corn, cotton, and other crops, are by no means exceptional. Aughey found twenty-three species of shorebirds feeding on Rocky Mountain locusts in Nebraska, some of them consuming large numbers, as shown below.

9 killdeer stomachs contained an average of 28 locusts each. 11 semipalmated plover stomachs contained an average of 38 locusts each. 16 mountain plover stomachs contained an average of 45 locusts each. 11 jacksnipe stomachs contained an average of 37 locusts each. 22 upland plover stomachs contained an average of 36 locusts each. 10 long-billed curlew stomachs contained an average of 48 locusts each.



Even under ordinary conditions grasshoppers are a staple food of many members of the shorebird family, and the following species are known to feed on them:

Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus). Avocet (Recurvirostra americana). Black-necked stilt (Himantopus mexicanus). Woodcock (Philohela minor). Jacksnipe (Gallinago delicata). Dowitcher (Macrorhamphus griseus). Robin snipe (Tringa canutus). White-rumped sandpiper (Pisobia fuscicollis). Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi). Least sandpiper (Pisobia minutilla). Buff-breasted sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis). Spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularia). Long-billed curlew (Numenius americanus). Black-bellied plover (Squatarola squatarola). Golden plover (Charadrius dominicus). Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus). Semipalmated plover (Aegialitis semipalmata). Marbled godwit (Limosa fedoa). Ringed plover (Aegialitis hiaticula). Yellowlegs (Totanus flavipes). Mountain plover (Podasocys montanus). Solitary sandpiper (Helodromas solitarius). Turnstone (Arenaria interpres). Upland plover (Bartramia longicauda).

Shorebirds are fond of other insect pests of forage and grain crops, including the army worm, which is known to be eaten by the killdeer and spotted sandpiper; also cutworms, among whose enemies are the avocet, woodcock, pectoral and Baird sandpipers, upland plover, and killdeer. Two caterpillar enemies of cotton, the cotton worm and the cotton cutworm, are eaten by the upland plover and killdeer. The latter bird feeds also on caterpillars of the genus Phlegethontius, which includes, the tobacco and tomato worms.

The principal farm crops have many destructive beetle enemies also, and some of these are eagerly eaten by shorebirds. The boll weevil and clover-leaf weevil are eaten by the upland plover and killdeer, the rice weevil by the killdeer, the cowpea weevil by the upland plover, and the clover-root curculio by the following species of shorebirds:

Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus). White-rumped sandpiper (Pisobia fuscicollis). Pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia maculata). Upland plover (Bartramia longicauda). Baird sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi). Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus).

The last two eat also other weevils which attack cotton, grapes and sugar beets. Bill-bugs, which often do considerable damage to corn, seem to be favorite food of some of the shorebirds. They are eaten by the Wilson phalarope, avocet, black-necked stilt, pectoral sandpiper, killdeer, and upland plover. They are an important element of the latter bird's diet, and no fewer than eight species of them have been found in its food.

Wireworms and their adult forms, click beetles, are devoured by the northern phalarope, woodcock, jacksnipe, pectoral sandpiper, killdeer, and upland plover. The last three feed also on the southern corn leaf-beetle and the last two upon the grapevine colaspis. Other shorebirds that eat leaf-beetles are the Wilson phalarope and dowitcher.

Crayfishes, which are a pest in rice and corn fields in the South and which injure levees, are favorite food of the black-necked stilt, and several other shorebirds feed upon them, notably the jacksnipe, robin snipe, spotted sandpiper, upland plover, and killdeer.

Thus it is evident that shorebirds render important aid by devouring the enemies of farm crops and in other ways, and their services are appreciated by those who have observed the birds in the field. Thus W.A. Clark, of Corpus Christi, Tex., reports that upland plovers are industrious in following the plow and in eating the grubs that destroy garden stuff, corn, and cotton crops. H.W. Tinkham, of Fall River, Mass., says of the spotted sandpiper: "Three pairs nested in a young orchard behind my house and adjacent to my garden. I did not see them once go to the shore for food (shore about 1,500 feet away), but I did see them many times make faithful search of my garden for cutworms, spotted squash bugs, and green flies. Cutworms and cabbage worms were their special prey. After the young could fly, they still kept at work in my garden, and showed no inclination to go to the shore until about August 15th. They and a flock of quails just over the wall helped me wonderfully."

In the uncultivated parts of their range also, shorebirds search out and destroy many creatures that are detrimental to man's interest. Several species prey upon the predaceous diving beetles (Dytiscidae), which are a nuisance in fish hatcheries and which destroy many insects, the natural food of fishes. The birds now known to take these beetles are:

Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus). Dowitcher (Macrorhamphus griseus). Wilson phalarope (Steganopus tricolor). Robin snipe (Tringa canutus). Avocet (Recurvirostra americana). Pectoral sandpiper (Pisobia maculata). Black-necked stilt (Himantopus mexicanus). Red-backed sandpiper (Pelidna alpina sakhalina). Jacksnipe (Gallinago delicata). Kill deer (Oxyechus vociferus).

Large numbers of marine worms of the genus Nereis, which prey upon oysters, are eaten by shorebirds. 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:

Northern phalarope (Lobipes lobatus). White-rumped sandpiper (Pisobia fuscicollis). Dowitcher (Macrorhamphus griseus). Stilt sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus). Red-backed sandpiper (Pelidna alpina sakhalina). Robin snipe (Tringa canutus). Purple sandpiper (Arquatella maritima). Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus).

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. It is worth recalling that their diet includes such pests as the Rocky Mountain locust and other injurious grasshoppers, the army worm, cutworms, cabbage worms, cotton worm, cotton cutworm, boll weevil, clover leaf weevil, clover root curculio, rice weevil, corn bill-bugs, wireworms, corn leaf-beetles, cucumber beetles, white grubs, and such foes of stock as the Texas fever tick, horseflies, and mosquitoes. 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. Their limited powers of reproduction, coupled with the natural vicissitudes of the breeding period, make their increase slow, and peculiarly expose them to danger of extermination.

In the way of protection a beginning has been made, and a continuous close season until 1915 has been established for the following birds: The killdeer, in Massachusetts and Louisiana; the upland plover, in Massachusetts, and Vermont; and the piping plover in Massachusetts. But, considering the needs and value of these birds, this modicum of protection is small indeed.

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. So great, indeed, is their economic value, that their retention on the game list and their destruction by sportsmen is a serious loss to agriculture.—(End of the circular.)

* * * * *

The following appeared in the Zoological Society Bulletin, for January, 1909, from Richard Walter Tomalin, of Sydney, N.S.W.:

"In the subdistricts of Robertson and Kangaloon in the Illawarra district of New South Wales, what ten years ago was a waving mass of English cocksfoot and rye grass, which had been put in gradually as the dense vine scrub was felled and burnt off, is now a barren desert, and nine families out of every ten which were renting properties have been compelled to leave the district and take up other lands. This is through the grubs having eaten out the grass by the roots. Ploughing proved to be useless, as the grubs ate out the grass just the same. Whilst there recently I was informed that it took three years from the time the grubs were first seen until to-day, to accomplish this complete devastation;. in other words, three years ago the grubs began work in the beautiful country of green mountains and running streams.

"The birds had all been ruthlessly shot and destroyed in that district, and I was amazed at the absence of bird life. The two sub-districts I have mentioned have an area of about thirty square miles, and form a table-land about 1200 feet above sea level."

The same kind of common sense that teaches men to go in when it rains, and keep out of fiery furnaces, teaches us that as a business proposition it is to man's interest to protect the birds. Make them plentiful and keep them so. When we strike the birds, we hurt ourselves. The protection of our insect-eating and seed-eating birds is a cash proposition,—protect or pay.

Were I a farmer, no gun ever should be fired on my premises at any bird save the English sparrow and the three bad hawks. Any man who would kill my friend Bob White I would treat as an enemy. 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.

At this stage of wild life extermination, it is impossible to make our bird-protection laws too strict, or too far-reaching. The remnant of our birds should be protected, with clubs and guns if necessary. All our shore birds should be accorded a ten-year close season. Don't ask the gunners whether they will agree to it or not. Of course they will not agree to it,—never! But our duty is clear,—to go ahead and do it!

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXIV

GAME AND AGRICULTURE; AND DEER AS A FOOD SUPPLY

As a state and county asset, the white-tailed deer contains possibilities that as yet seem to be ignored by the American people as a whole. It is quite time to consider that persistent, prolific and toothsome animal.

The proposition that large herds of horned game can not becomingly roam at will over farms and vineyards worth one hundred dollars per acre, affords little room for argument. Generally speaking, there is but one country in the world that breaks this well-nigh universal rule; and that country is India. On the plains between and adjacent to the Ganges and the Jumna, for two thousand years herds of black-buck, or sasin antelope, have roamed over cultivated fields so thickly garnished with human beings that to-day the rifle-shooting sportsman stands in hourly peril of bagging a five-hundred-rupee native every time he fires at an antelope.

Wherever rich agricultural lands exist, the big game must give way,—from those lands. To-day the bison could not survive in Iowa, eastern Nebraska or eastern Kansas, any longer than a Shawnee Indian would last on the Bowery. It was foredoomed that the elk, deer, bear and wild turkey should vanish from the rich farming regions of the East and the middle West.

To-day in British East Africa lions are being hunted with dogs and shot wholesale, because they are a pest to the settlers and to the surviving herds of big game. At the same time, the settlers who are striving to wrest the fertile plains of B.E.A, from the domain of savagery declare that the African buffalo, the zebra, the kongoni and the elephant are public nuisances that must be suppressed by the rifle.

Even the most ardent friend of wild life must admit that when a settler has laboriously fenced his fields, and plowed and sowed, only to have his whole crop ruined in one night by a herd of fence-breaking zebras, the event is sufficient to abrade the nerves of the party most in interest. While I take no stock in stories of dozens of "rogue" elephants that require treatment with the rifle, and of grown men being imperiled by savage gazelles, we admit that there are times when wild animals can make nuisances of themselves. Let us consider that subject now.

WILD ANIMAL NUISANCES.—Complaints have come to me, at various times, of great destruction of lambs by eagles; of trout by blue herons; of crops (on Long Island) by deer; of pears destroyed by birds, and of valuable park trees by beavers that chop down trees not wisely but too well. I do not, however, include in this category any cherries eaten by robins, or orioles, or jays; for they are of too small importance to consider in this court.



To meet the legitimate demands for the abatement of unbearable wild-animal nuisances, I recommend the enactment of a law similar to Section 158 of the Game laws of New York, which provides for the safe and legitimate abatement of unbearable wild creatures as follows:

Section 158. Power to Take Birds and Quadrupeds. In the event that any species of birds protected by the provisions of section two hundred and nineteen of this article, or quadrupeds protected by law, shall at any time, in any locality, become destructive of private or public property, the commission shall have power in its discretion to direct any game protector, or issue a permit to any citizen of the state, to take such species of birds or quadrupeds and dispose of the same in such manner as the commission may provide. Such permit shall expire within four months after the date of issuance.

This measure should be adopted by every state that is troubled by too many, or too aggressive, wild mammals or birds.

But to return to the subject of big game and farming. We do not complain of the disappearance of the bison, elk, deer and bear from the farms of the United States and Canada. The passing of the big game from all such regions follows the advance of real civilization, just so surely and certainly as night follows day.

But this vast land of ours is not wholly composed of rich agricultural lands; not by any means. There are millions of acres of forest lands, good, bad and indifferent, worth from nothing per acre up to one hundred dollars or more. There are millions of acres of rocky, brush-covered mountains and hills, wholly unsuited to agriculture, or even horticulture. There are other millions of acres of arid plains and arboreal deserts, on which nothing but thirst-proof animals can live and thrive. The South contains vast pine forests and cypress swamps, millions of acres of them, of which the average northerner knows less than nothing.

We can not stop long enough to look it up, but from the green color on our national map that betokens the forest reserves, and from our own personal knowledge of the deserts, swamps, barrens and rocks that we have seen, we make the estimate that fully one-third of the total area of the United States is incapable of supporting the husbandman who depends for his existence upon tillage of the soil. People may talk and write about "dry farming" all they please, but I wish to observe that from Dry-Farming to Success is a long shot, with many limbs in the way. When it rains sufficiently, dry farming is a success; but otherwise it is not; and we heartily wish it were otherwise.

The logical conclusion of our land that is utterly unfit for agriculture is a great area of land available for occupancy by valuable wild animals. Every year the people of the United States are wasting uncountable millions of pounds of venison, because we are neglecting our opportunities for producing it practically without cost. Imagine for a moment bestowing upon land owners the ability to stock with white-tailed and Indian sambar deer all the wild lands of the United States that are suitable for those species, and permitting only bucks over one year of age to be shot. With the does even reasonably protected, the numerical results in annual pounds of good edible flesh fairly challenges the imagination.

About six years ago, Mr. C.C. Worthington's deer, in his fenced park, at Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pennsylvania, became so numerous and so burdensome that he opened his fences and permitted about one thousand head to go free.

We are losing each year a very large and valuable asset in the intangible form of a million hardy deer that we might have raised but did not! Our vast domains of wooded mountains, hills and valleys lie practically untenanted by big game, save in a few exceptional spots. We lose because we are lawless. We lose because we are too improvident to conserve large forms of wild life unless we are compelled to do so by the stern edict of the law! The law-breakers, the game-hogs, the conscienceless doe-and-fawn slayers are everywhere! Ten per cent of all the grown men now in the United States are to-day poachers, thieves and law-breakers, or else they are liable to become so to-morrow. If you doubt it, try risking your new umbrella unprotected in the next mixed company of one hundred men that you encounter, in such a situation that it will be easy to "get away" with it.

We could raise two million deer each year on our empty wild lands; but without fences it would take half a million real game-wardens, on duty from dawn until dark, to protect them from destructive slaughter. At present our land of liberty contains only 9,354 game wardens.[J] The states that contain the greatest areas of wild lands naturally lack in population and in tax funds, and not one such state can afford to put into the field even half enough salaried game wardens to really protect her game from surreptitious slaughter. The surplus of "personal liberty" in this liberty-cursed land is a curse to the big game. The average frontiersman never will admit the divine right of kings, but he does ardently believe in the divine right of settlers,—to reach out and take any of the products of Nature that they happen to fancy.

[Footnote J: Of this force, there are only 1,200 salaried wardens. The most of those who serve without salaries naturally render but little continuous or regular service.]

WILD MEAT AS A FOOD SUPPLY.—We hear much these days about the high cost of living, but thus far we have made no move to mend the situation. With coal going straight up to ten dollars per ton, beef going up to fifteen dollars per hundred on the hoof and wheat and hay going-up—heaven alone knows where, it is time for all Americans who are not rich to arouse and take thought for the morrow. What are we going to do about it? The tariff on the coarser necessities of life is now booked to come down; but what about the fresh meat supply?

I desire to point out that between Bangor and San Diego and from Key West to Bellingham, our country contains millions of acres of wild, practically uninhabited forests, rough foot-hills, bad-lands and mountains that could produce two million deer each year, without deducting $50,000 a year from the wealth of the country. I grant that in the total number of deer that would be necessary to produce two million deer per annum, the farms situated on the edges of forests, and actually within the forests, would suffer somewhat from the depredations of those deer. As I will presently show by documentary records, every one of those individual damages that exceeds two dollars in value could be compensated in cash, and afterward leave on the credit side of the deer account an enormous annual balance.

Stop for a moment, you enterprising and restless men and women who travel all over the United States, and think of the illimitable miles of unbroken forest that you have looked upon from your Pullman windows in the East, in the South, in the West and in southern Canada. Recall the wooded mountains of the Appalachian system, the White Mountain region, the pine forests of the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf States, the forests of Tennessee, Arkansas and southern Missouri; of northern Minnesota, and every state of the Rocky Mountain region. Then, think of the silent and untouched forests of the Pacific Coast and tell me whether you think five million deer scattered through all those forests would make any visible impression upon them. That would be only about twenty-five times as many as are there now! I think the forests would not be over populated; and they would produce two million killable deer each year!

Last year, 11,000 deer were forced down out of their hiding places in the Rocky Mountains, and were killed in Montana. Even the natives had not dreamed there were so many available; and they were slaughtered not wisely but too ill. It is not right that six members of one family should "hog" twelve deer in one season. At present no deer supply can stand such slaughter.

Assuming that the people of the United States could be educated into the idea of so conserving deer that they could draw two million head per year from the general stock, what would it be worth?

It is not very difficult to estimate the value of a deer, when the whole animal can be utilized. In various portions of the United States, deer vary in size, but I shall take all this into account, and try to strike a fair average. In some sections, where deer are large and heavy, a full-grown buck is easily worth twenty-five dollars. Let him who doubts it, try to replace those generous pounds of flesh with purchased beef and mutton and veal, and see how far twenty-five dollars will go toward it. Every man who is a householder knows full well how little meat one dollar will buy at this time.

I think that throughout the United States as a whole every full-grown deer, male or female contains on an average ten dollars worth of good meat. I know of one large preserve which annually sells its surplus of deer at that price, wholesale, to dealers; and in New York City (doubtless in many other cities, also) venison often has sold in the market at one dollar per pound!

Two million deer at $10 each mean $20,000,000. The licenses for the killing of two million deer should cost one million men one dollar each; and that would pay 1,666 new game wardens each fifty dollars per month, all the year round. The damages that would need to be paid to farmers, on account of crops injured by deer, would be so small that each county could take care of its own cases, from its own treasury, as is done in the State of Vermont.

There are certain essentials to the realization of a dream of two million deer per year that are absolutely required. They are neither obscure nor impossible.

Each state and each county proposing to stock its vacant woods with deer must resolutely educate its own people in the necessity of playing fair about the killing of deer, and giving every man and every deer a square deal. This is not impossible! Not as a general thing, even though it may be so in some specially lawless communities. If the leading men of the state and the county will take this matter seriously in hand, it can be done in two years' time. The American people are not insensible to appeals to reason, when those appeals are made by their own "home folks." The governors, senators, assemblymen, judges, mayors and justices of the peace could, if they would, make a campaign of education and appeal that would result in the creation of an immense volume of free wild food in every state that possesses wild lands.

When the shoe of Necessity pinches the People hard enough, remember the possibilities in deer.



The best wild animal to furnish a serious food supply is the white-tailed deer. This is because of its persistence and fertility. The elk is too large for general use. An elk carcass can not be carried on a horse; it is impossible to get a sled or a wagon to where it lies; and so, fully half of it usually is wasted! The mule deer is good for the Rocky Mountains, and can live where the white-tail can not; but it is too easy to shoot! The Columbian black-tail is the natural species for the forests of the Pacific states; but it is a trifle small in size.

THE EXAMPLE OF VERMONT.—In order to show that all the above is not based on empty theory,—regarding the stocking of forests with deer, their wonderful powers of increase, and the practical handling of the damage question,—let us take the experience and the fine example of Vermont.

In April, 1875, a few sportsmen of Rutland, of whom the late Henry W. Cheney was one, procured in the Adirondacks thirteen white-tailed deer, six bucks and seven does. These were liberated in a forest six miles from Rutland, and beyond being protected from slaughter, they were left to shift for themselves. They increased, slowly at first, then rapidly, and by 1897, they had become so numerous that it seemed right to have a short annual open season, and kill a few. From first to last, many of those deer have been killed contrary to law. In 1904-5, it was known that 294 head were destroyed in that way; and undoubtedly there were others that were not reported.

ACCOUNT OF DEER KILLED IN VERMONT, OF RECORD SINCE KILLING BEGAN, IN 1897

From John W. Titcomb, State Game Commissioner, Lyndonville, Vt., Aug. 23, 1912

By By By Wounded By By Average Gross Year Hunters, Hunters, Dogs Deer Railroad Various Weight Weight Legally Illegally Killed Trains Accidents (lbs.) (lbs.)

1897* 103 47 1898 131 30 40 3 1899 90 1900 123 1901 211 1902 403 81 50 13 14 171 68,747 1903 753 199 190 142,829 1904 541 1905 497 163 74 22 18 17 198 1906 634 200 127,193 1907 991 287 208 62 31 21 196 134,353 1908 2,208 207 457,585 1909 4,597 381 168 69 24 72 155 716,358

* First open season after deer restored to state in 1875.

DAMAGES TO CROPS BY DEER.—For several years past, the various counties of Vermont have been paying farmers for damages inflicted upon their crops by deer. Clearly, it is more just that counties should settle these damages than that they should be paid from the state treasury, because the counties paying damages have large compensation in the value of the deer killed each year. The hunting appears to be open to all persons who hold licenses from the state.

In order that the public at large may know the cost of the Vermont system, I offer the following digest compiled from the last biennial report of the State Fish and Game Commissioner:

DAMAGES PAID FOR DEER DEPREDATIONS IN VERMONT DURING TWO YEARS

Total damages paid from June 8, 1908, to June 22, 1910 $4,865.98 Total number of claims paid 311 Total number of claims under $5 80 Number between $5 and $10, inclusive 102 Number over $25 and under $51 23 Number between $50 and $100 11 Number in excess of $100 4 Number in excess of $200 1 Largest claim paid $326.50

VALUE OF WHITE-TAILED DEER.—Having noted the fact that in two years (1908-9), the people of Vermont paid out $4,865 in compensation for damages inflicted by deer, it is of interest to determine whether that money was wisely expended. In other words, did it pay?

We have seen that in the years 1908 and 9, the people of Vermont killed, legally and illegally, and converted to use, 7,186 deer. This does not include the deer killed by dogs and by accidents.

Regarding the value of a full-grown deer, it must be remembered that much depends upon the locality of the carcass. In New York or Pittsburg or Chicago, a whole deer is worth, at wholesale, at least twenty-five dollars. In Vermont, where deer are plentiful, they are worth a less sum. I think that fifteen dollars would be a fair figure,—at least low enough!

Even when computed at fifteen dollars per carcass, those deer were worth to the people of Vermont $107,790. It would seem, therefore, that the soundness of Vermont's policy leaves no room for argument; and we hope that other states, and also private individuals, will profit by Vermont's very successful experiment in bringing back the deer to her forests, and in increasing the food supply of her people.

KILLING FEMALE DEER.—To say one word on this subject which might by any possibility be construed as favoring it, is like juggling with a lighted torch over a barrel of gunpowder. Already, in Pennsylvania at least one gentleman has appeared anxious to represent me as favoring the killing of does, which in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand I distinctly and emphatically do not. The slaughter of female hoofed game animals is necessarily destructive and reprehensible, and not one man out of every ten thousand in this country ever will see the place and time wherein the opposite is true.

At present there are just two places in America, and I think only two, wherein there exists the slightest exception on this point. The state of Vermont is becoming overstocked with deer, and the females have in some counties (not in all), become so tame and destructive in orchards, gardens and farm crops as to constitute a great annoyance. For this reason, the experiment is being made of permitting does to be killed under license, until their number is somewhat reduced.

The first returns from this trial have now come in, from the county game wardens of Vermont to the state game warden. Mr. John W. Titcomb. I will quote the gist of the opinion of each.

The State Commissioner says: "This law should remain in force at least until there is some indication of a decrease in the number of deer." Warden W.H. Taft (Addison County) says: "The killing of does I believe did away with a good many of these tame deer that cause most of the damage to farmers' crops." Harry Chase (Bennington County) says the doe-killing law is "a good law, and I sincerely trust it will not be repealed." Warden Hayward of Rutland County says: "The majority of the farmers in this county are in favor of repealing the doe law.... A great many does and young deer (almost fawns) were killed in this county during the hunting season of 1909." R.W. Wheeler, of Rutland County says: "Have the doe law repealed! We don't need it!" H.J. Parcher of Washington County finds that the does did more damage to the crops than the bucks, and he thinks the doe law is "a just one." R.L. Frost, of Windham County, judicially concludes that "the law allowing does to be killed should remain in force one or two seasons more." C.S Parker, of Orleans County, says his county is not overstocked with deer, and he favors a special act for his county, to protect females.

A summary of the testimony of the wardens is easily made. When deer are too plentiful, and the over-tame does become a public nuisance too great to be endured, the number should be reduced by regular shooting in the open season; but,

As soon as the proper balance of deer life has been restored, protect the does once more.

The pursuit of this policy is safe and sane, provided it can be wrought out without the influence of selfishness, and reckless disregard for the rights of the next generation. On the whole, its handling is like playing with fire, and I think there are very, very few states on this earth wherein it would be wise or safe to try it. As a wise friend once remarked to me, "Give some men a hinch, and they'll always try to take a hell." In Vermont, however, the situation is kept so well in hand we may be sure that at the right moment the law providing for the decrease of the number of does will be repealed.

HIPPOPOTAMI AND ANTELOPES.—Last year a bill was introduced in the lower House of Congress proposing to provide funds for the introduction into certain southern states of various animals from Africa, especially hippopotami and African antelopes. The former were proposed partly for the purpose of ridding navigation of the water hyacinths that now are choking many of the streams of Louisiana and Mississippi. The antelopes were to be acclimatized as a food supply for the people at large.

This measure well illustrates the prevailing disposition of the American people to-day,—to ignore and destroy their own valuable natural stock of wild birds and mammals, and when they have completed their war of extermination, reach out to foreign countries for foreign species. Instead of preserving the deer of the South, the South reaches out for the utterly impossible antelopes of Africa, and the preposterous hippopotamus. The North joyously exterminates her quail and ruffed grouse, and goes to Europe for the Hungarian partridge. That partridge is a failure here, and I am heartily glad of it, on the ground that the exterminators of our native species do not deserve success in their efforts to displace our finest native species with others from abroad.

The hippo-antelope proposition is a climax of absurdity, in proposing the replacing of valuable native game with impossible foreign species.

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CHAPTER XXV

LAW AND SENTIMENT AS FACTORS IN PRESERVATION

There is grave danger that through ignorance of the true character of about 80 per cent of the men and boys who shoot wild creatures, a great wrong will be done the latter. Let us not make a fatal mistake.

After more than thirty years of observation among all kinds of sportsmen, hunters and gunners, I am convinced that it is utterly futile and deadly dangerous to rely on humane, high-class sentiment to diminish the slaughter of wild things by game-hogs and pot-hunters.

In some respects, the term "game-hog" is a rude, rough word; but it is needed in the English language, and it has come to stay. It is a disagreeable term, but it was brought into use to apply to a class of very disagreeable persons.

A "game-hog" is a hunter of game who knows no such thing as sentiment or conscience in the killing of game, so long as he keeps within the limit of the law. Regardless of the scarcity of game, or of its hard struggle for existence, he will kill right up to the bag limit every day that he goes out, provided it is possible to do so. He uses the "law" as a salve for the spot where his conscience should be. He will shoot with any machine gun, or gun of big calibre, in every way that the law allows, and he knows no such thing as giving the game a square deal. He brags of his big bags of game, and he loves to be photographed with a wagon-load of dead birds as a background. He believes in automatic and pump guns, spring shooting, longer open seasons and "more game." He is quite content to shoot half tame ducks in a club preserve as they fly between coop and pond, whenever he secures an opportunity. He will gladly sell his game whenever he can do so without being found out, and sometimes when he is.

Often a true sportsman drifts without realizing it into some one way of the confirmed game-hog; but the moment he is made to realize his position, he changes his course and his standing. The game-hog is impervious to argument. You can shame a horse away from his oats more easily than you can shame him from doing "what the Law allows."

There are hundreds of thousands of gentlemen and gentlewomen who never once have come in touch with real cloven-footed game-hogs, who do not understand the species at all, and do not recognize its ear-marks. Thousands of such persons will tell you: "In my opinion, the best way to save the wild life is to educate the people!" I have heard that, many, many times.

For right-hearted people, a little law is quite sufficient; and the best people need none at all! But the game-hogs are different. For them, the strict letter of the law, backed up by a strong-arm squad, is the only controlling influence that they recognize. To them it is necessary to say: "You shall!" and "You shall not!"

Only yesterday the latest game-hog case was related to me by a game-protector from Kansas. Into a certain county of southern Kansas, from which the prairie-chicken had been totally gone for a dozen years or more, a pair of those birds entered, settled down and nested. Their coming was to many habitants a joyous event. "Now," said the People, "we will care for these birds, and they will multiply, and presently the county will be restocked."

But Ahab came! Two men from another county, calling themselves sportsmen but not entitled to that name, heard of those birds, and resolved to "get them." They waited until the young were just leaving the nest: and they went down and camped near by. On the first day they killed the two parent birds and half the flock of young birds, and the next day they got all the rest.

But there is a sequel to this story. One of those men was a dealer in guns and ammunition; and when his customers heard what he had done, "they simply put him out of business, by refusing to trade with him any more." He is now washing dirty dishes in a restaurant; but at heart he is a game-hog, just the same.

Near Bridgeport, Connecticut, a gentleman of my acquaintance owns a fine estate which is adorned with a trout stream and a superfine trout pond. Once he invited a business man of Bridgeport to be his guest, and fish for trout in his pond. On that guest, during a visit of three days all the finest forms of hospitality were bestowed.

Two weeks later, my friend's game-warden caught that guest, early on a Sunday morning, poaching on the trout-pond, and spoiled his carefully arranged get-away.

In his book "Saddle and Camp in the Rockies," Mr. Dillon Wallace tells a story of a man from New York who in the mountains of Colorado deliberately corrupted his guides with money or other influences, shot mountain sheep in midsummer, and "got away with it."

In northern Minnesota, George E. Wood has been having a hand-to-hand fight with the worst community of game-hogs and alien-born poachers of which I have heard. There appears to be no game law that they do not systematically violate. The killers seem determined to annihilate the last head of game, in spite of fines and imprisonments. The foreigners are absolutely uncontrollable. The latest feature of the war is the discovery of a tannery in the woods, where the hides of illegally-slaughtered deer and moose are dressed. Apparently the only kind of a law that will save the game of northern Minnesota is one that will totally disarm the entire population.

In Pennsylvania, there exists an association which was formed for the express purpose of fighting the State Game Commission, preventing the enactment of a hunter's license law and repealing the law against the killing of female deer and hornless fawns. The continued existence of that organization on that basis would be a standing disgrace to the fair name of Pennsylvania. I think, however, that that organization was founded on secret selfish purposes, and that ere long the general body of members will awaken to a realizing sense of their position, and range themselves in support of the excellent policies of the commission.

A POT-HUNTER is a man or boy who kills game as a business, for the money that can be derived from its sale, or other use. Such men have the same feelings as butchers. From their point of view, they can see no reason why all the game in the world should not be killed and marketed. Like the feather-dealers, they wish to get out of the wild life all the money there is in it; that is all. Left to themselves, with open markets they would soon exterminate the land fauna of the habitable portions of the globe.

No one can "educate" such people. For the gunners, game-hogs and pot-hunters, there is no check, save specific laws that sternly and amply safeguard the rights of the wild creatures that can not make laws for themselves.

Nor can anyone educate the heartless woman of fashion who is determined to wear aigrettes as long as her money can buy them. The best women of the world have already been educated on the bird-millinery subject, and they are already against the use of the gaudy badges of slaughter and extermination. But in the great cities of the world there are thousands of women who are at heart as cruel as Salome herself, and whose vicious tastes can be curbed only by the strong hand of the law. "Sentiment" for wild birds is not in them.

Because of the vicious and heartless elements among men and women, we say, Give us far-reaching, iron-bound LAWS for the protection of wild life, and plenty of courageous men to enforce them.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXVI

THE ARMY OF THE DEFENSE

It now seems that the friends of wild life who themselves are not on the firing-line should be afforded some definite information regarding the Army of the Defense, and its strength and weakness. It is an interesting subject, but the limitations of space will not permit an extended treatment.

Over the world at large, I think the active Destroyers outnumber the active Defenders of wild life at least in the ratio of 500 to 1; and the money available to the Destroyers is to the funds of the Defenders as 500 is to 1. The average big-game sportsman cheerfully expends from $500 to $1,000 on a hunting trip, but resents the suggestion that he should subscribe from $50 to $100 for wild life preservation. If he puts down $10, he thinks he has done a Big Thing. Worse than this, I am forced to believe that at least 75 per cent of the big-game sportsmen of the world never have contributed one dollar in money, or one hour of effort, to that cause. But there are exceptions; and I can name at least fifty sportsmen who have subscribed $100 each to campaign funds, and some who have given as high as $1,000.

Once I sat down beside a financially rich slaughterer of game, and asked him to subscribe a sum of real money in behalf of a very important campaign. I needed funds very much; and I explained, exhorted and besought. I pointed out his duty—to give back something in return for all the game slaughter that he had enjoyed. For ten long minutes he stood fire without flinching, and without once opening his lips to speak. He made no answer no argument, no defense and finally he never gave up one cent.

Wherever the English language is spoken, from Tasmania to Scotland, and from Porto Rico to the Philippines, the spirit of wild life protection exists. Elsewhere there is much more to be said on this point. To all cosmopolitan sportsmen, the British "Blue Book" on game protection, the annual reports of the two great protective societies of London, and the annual "Progress" report of the U.S. Department of Agriculture are reassuring and comforting. It is good to know that Uganda maintains a Department of Game Protection (A.L. Butler, Superintendent), that so good a man as Maj. J. Stevenson-Hamilton is in control of protection in the Transvaal, and that even the native State of Kashmir officially recognizes the need to protect the Remnant.

There are of course many parts of the world in which game laws and limits to slaughter are quite unknown: all of which is entirely wrong, and in need of quick correction. No state or nation can be accounted wholly civilized that fails to recognize the necessity to protect wild life. I am tempted to make a list of the states and nations that were at latest advices destitute of game laws and game protectors, but I fear to do injustice through lack of the latest information. However, the time has come to search out delinquents, and hold up to each one a mirror that will reflect its shortcomings.

Naturally, we are most interested in our own contingent of the Army of the Defense.

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.—To-day the feeling in Congress, toward the conservation of wild life and forests is admirable. Both houses are fully awake to the necessity of saving while there is yet something to be saved. The people of the United States may be assured that the national government is active and sympathetic in the prosecution of such conservation measures as it might justly be expected to promote. For example, during the past five years we have seen Congress take favorable action on the following important causes, nearly every one of which cost money:

The saving of the American bison, in four National ranges.

The creation of fifty-eight bird refuges.

The creation of five great game preserves.

The saving of the elk in Jackson Hole.

The protection of the fur seal.

The protection of the wild life of Alaska.

There are many active friends of wild life who confidently expect to see this fine list gloriously rounded out by the passage in 1913 of an ideal bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds. To name the friends of wild life in Congress would require the printing of a list of at least two hundred names, and a history of the rise and progress of wild life conservation by the national government would fill a volume. Such a volume would be highly desirable.

When the story of the national government's part in wild-life protection is finally written, it will be found that while he was president, THEODORE ROOSEVELT made a record in that field that is indeed enough to make a reign illustrious. He aided every wild-life cause that lay within the bounds of possibility, and he gave the vanishing birds and mammals the benefit of every doubt. He helped to establish three national bison herds, four national game preserves, fifty-three federal bird refuges, and to enact the Alaska game laws of 1902 and 1907.

It was in 1904 that the national government elected to accept its share of the white man's burden and enter actively into the practical business of wild life protection. This special work, originally undertaken and down to the present vigorously carried on by Dr. Theodore S. Palmer, has considerably changed the working policy of the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture, and greatly influenced game protection throughout the states. The game protection work of that bureau is alone worth to the people of this country at least twenty times more per annum than the entire annual cost of the Bureau. Next to the splendid services of Dr. Palmer, all over the United States, one great value of the Bureau is found in the fact-and-figure ammunition that it prepares and distributes for general use in assaults on the citadels of Ignorance and Greed. The publications of the Bureau are of great practical value to the people of the United States.



Dr. Palmer is a man of incalculable value to the cause of protection. No call for advice is too small to receive his immediate attention, no fight is too hot and no danger-point too remote to keep him from the fray. Wherever the Army of Destruction is making a particularly dangerous fight to repeal good laws and turn back the wheels of progress, there will he be found. As the warfare grows more intense, Congress may find it necessary to enlarge the fighting force of the Biological Survey.

The work that has been done by the Bureau in determining the economic value or lack of value of our most important species of insectivorous birds, has been worth millions to the agricultural interests of the United States. Through it we know where we stand. The reasons why we need to strive for protection can be expressed in figures and percentages; and it seems to me that they leave the American people no option but to protect!

STATE GAME COMMISSIONS.—Each of our states, and each province of Canada, maintains either a State Game Commission of several persons, one Commissioner, or a State Game Warden. All such officers are officially charged with the duty of looking after the general welfare of the game and other wild life of their respective states. Theoretically one of the chief duties of a State Game Commission is to initiate new legislative bills that are necessary, and advocate their translation into law. The official standing of most game commissioners is such that they can successfully do this. In 1909 Governor Hughes of New York went so far as to let it be known that he would sign no new game bill that did not meet the approval of State Game Commissioner James S. Whipple. As a general working principle, and quite aside from Mr. Whipple, that was wrong; because even a State game commissioner is not necessarily infallible, or always on the right side of every wild-life question.

As a rule, state commissioners and state wardens are keenly alive to the needs of their states in new game protective legislation, and a large percentage of the best existing laws are due to their initiative. Often, however, their usefulness is limited by the trammels of public office, and there are times when such officers can not be too aggressive without the risk of arousing hostile influences, and handicapping their own departmental work. For this reason, it is often advisable that bills which propose great and drastic reforms, and which are likely to become storm-centers, should originate outside the Commissioner's office, and be pushed by men who are perfectly free to abide the fortunes of open warfare. It should be distinctly understood, however, that lobbying in behalf of wild-life measures is an important part of the legitimate duty of every state game commissioner, and is a most honorable calling.



Of the many strong and aggressive state game commissions that I would like to mention in detail, space permits the naming of only a very few, by way of illustration.

NEW YORK.—Thanks to the great conservation Governor of this state, John A. Dix, the year 1911 saw our forest, fish and game business established on an ideal business basis. Realizing the folly of requiring a single man to manage those three great interests, and render to each the attention that it deserves and requires, by a well-studied legislative act a State Conservation Commission was created, consisting of three commissioners, one for each of the three great natural departments. These are salaried officers, who devote their entire time to their work, and are properly equipped with assistants. The state force of game wardens now consists of 125 picked men, each on a salary of $900 per year, and through a rigid system of daily reports (inaugurated by John B. Burnham) the activities and results of each warden promptly become known in detail at headquarters.

Fortunately, New York contains a very large number of true sportsmen, who are ever ready to come forward in support of every great measure for wild-life protection. The spirit of real protection runs throughout the state, and in time I predict that it will result in a great recovery of the native game of the commonwealth. That will be after we have stopped all shooting of upland game birds and shore birds for about eight years. Even the pinnated grouse could be successfully introduced over one-third of the state, if the people would have it so. It was our great body of conscientious sportsmen who made possible the Bayne-Blauvelt law, and the new codification of the game laws of the state.

TENNESSEE.—Clearly, Honorable Mention belongs to the unsalaried State Commissioner of Tennessee, Col. J.H. Acklen, "than whom," says Dr. Palmer, "there is no more active and enthusiastic game protectionist in this country. Whatever has been accomplished in that state is due to his activity and public spirit. Col. Acklen, who is now president of the National Association of Game Commissioners, is a prominent lawyer, and enjoys the distinction of being the only commissioner in the country who not only serves without pay, but also defrays a large part of the expenses of game protection out of his own pocket."

Surely the Commonwealth of Tennessee will not long permit this unsupported condition of such a game commissioner to endure. That state has a wild fauna worth preserving for her sons and grandsons, and it is inconceivable that the funds vitally necessary to this public service can not be found.

ALABAMA.—I cite the case of Alabama because, in view of its position in a group of states that until recently have cared little about game protection, it may be regarded as an unusual case. Commissioner John H. Wallace, Jr., has evolved order out of chaos,—and something approaching a reign of law out of the absence of law. To-day the State of Alabama stands as an example of what can be accomplished by and through one clear-headed, determined man who is right, and knows that he is right.

NEW JERSEY.—Alabama reminds one of New Jersey, and of State Game Commissioner Ernest Napier. I have seen him on the firing-line, and I know that his strong devotion to the interests of the wild life of his state, his determination to protect it at all costs, and his resistless confidence in asking for what is right, have made him a power for good. The state legislature believes in him, and enacts the laws that he says are right and necessary. He serves without salary, and gives to the state time, labor and money. It is a pleasure to work with such a man. In 1912 Commissioner Napier won a pitched battle with the makers of automatic and pump guns, both shotguns and rifles, and debarred all those weapons from use in hunting in New Jersey unless satisfactorily reduced to two shots.

MASSACHUSETTS.—The state of Massachusetts is fortunate in the possession of a very fine corps of ornithologists, nature lovers, sportsmen and leading citizens who on all questions affecting wild life occupy high ground and are not afraid to maintain it. It would be a pleasure to write an entire chapter on this subject. The record of the Massachusetts Army of the Defense is both an example and an inspiration to the people of other states. Not only is the cause of protection championed by the State Game Commission but it also receives constant and powerful support from the State Board of Agriculture, which maintains on its staff Mr. E.H. Forbush as State Ornithologist. The bird-protection publications of the Board are of great economic value, and they are also an everlasting credit to the state. The very latest is a truly great wild-life-protection volume of 607 pages, by Mr. Forbush, entitled "Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds." It is a publication most damaging to the cause of the Army of Destruction, and I heartily wish a million copies might be printed and placed in the hands of lawmakers and protectors.

The fight last winter and spring for a no-sale-of-game law was the Gettysburg for Massachusetts. The voice of the People was heard in no uncertain tones, and the Destroyers were routed all along the line. The leaders in that struggle on the protection side were E.H. Forbush, William P. Wharton, Dr. George W. Field, Edward N. Goding, Lyman E. Hurd, Ralph Holman, Rev. Wm. R. Lord and Salem D. Charles. With such leaders and such supporters, any wild-life cause can be won, anywhere!

PENNSYLVANIA.—The case of Pennsylvania is rather peculiar. As yet there is no large and resistless organized body of real sportsmen to rally to the support of the State Game Commission in great causes, as is the case in New York. As a result, with a paltry fund of only $20,000 for annual maintenance, and much opposition from hunters and farmers, the situation is far from satisfactory. Fortunately Dr. Joseph Kalbfus, Secretary of the Commission and chief executive officer, is a man of indomitable courage and determination. But for this state of mind he would ere this have given up the fight for the hunter's license law (of one dollar per year), which has been bitterly opposed by a very aggressive and noisy group of gunners who do not seem to know that they are grievously misled.

Fortunately, Commissioner John M. Phillips, of Pittsburgh is the ardent supporter of Dr. Kalbfus and a vigorous fighter for justice to wild life. He devotes to the cause a great amount of time and effort, and in addition to serving without salary he pays all his campaign expenses out of his own pocket. His only recompense for all this is the sincere admiration of his friends, and the consciousness of having done his full duty toward the wild life and the people of his native state.

THE STATE AUDUBON SOCIETIES.—It is impossible to estimate the full value of the influence and work of the State Audubon Societies of the United States. Thus far these societies exist in thirty-nine states. From the beginning, their efforts have tended especially toward the preservation of the non-game birds, and it is well that the song and other insectivorous birds have thus been specially championed. Unfortunately, however, if that policy is pursued exclusively, it leaves 154 very important species of game birds practically at the mercy of the Army of Destruction! It would seem that the time has come when all Audubon Societies should take up, as a part of their work, active co-operation in helping to save the game birds from extermination.

* * * * *

THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF NEW YORK CITY

On January 1, 1895, the United States of America contained, so far as I am aware, not one organization of national scope which was devoting any large amount of its resources and activities to the protection of wild life. At that time the former activities of the A.O.U. Committee on Bird Protection had lapsed. To-day the city of New York contains six national organizations, and it is now a great center of nation-wide activities in behalf of preservation. Furthermore, these activities are steadily growing, and securing practical results.

THE NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY.—In 1895 there was born into the world a scientific organization having for its second declared object "the preservation of our native animals." It was the first scientific society or corporation ever formed, so far as I am aware, having a specifically declared object of that kind. It owes its existence and its presence in the field of wild-life conservation to the initiative and persistence of Mr. Madison Grant and Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn. For sixteen years these two officers have worked together virtually as one man. It is not strange to find a sportsman like Mr. Grant promoting the wild-life cause, but it is a fact well worthy of note that of all the zoologists of the world, Professor Osborn is the only one of real renown who has actively and vigorously engaged in this cause, and taken a place in the front rank of the Defenders.

Mr. Grant's influence on the protection cause has been strong and far-reaching,—far more so than the majority of his own friends are aware. He has promoted important protectionist causes from Alaska to Louisiana and Newfoundland, and helped to win many important victories.

THE BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB.—This organization of big game sportsmen was founded in 1885, and is the oldest of its kind in the United States. Its members always have supported the cause of protection, by law and by the making of game preserves. In all this work Mr. George Bird Grinnell, for twenty-five years editor of Forest and Stream, has been an important factor. As stated elsewhere, the club's written and unwritten code of ethics in big-game hunting is very strict. In course of time a Committee on Game Protection was formed, and it actively entered that field.



THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES.—This organization was founded by William Dutcher, in 1902, and in 1906 it was endowed to the extent of $322,000 by the bequest of Albert Wilcox. Subsequent endowments, together with the annual contributions of members and friends, now give the Association an annual income of $60,000. It maintains eight widely-separated field agents and lecturers and forty special game wardens of bird refuges. It maintains Secretary T. Gilbert Pearson and a number of other good men constantly on the firing-line; and these forces have achieved many valuable results. After years of stress and struggle, it now seems almost certain that this organization will save the two white egrets,—producers of "the white badge of cruelty,"—to the bird fauna of the United States, as in a similar manner it has saved the gulls, terns and other sea birds of our lakes and coast line.

This splendid organization is one of the monuments to William Dutcher. More than two years ago he was stricken with paralysis, and now sits in an invalid's chair at his home in Plainfield, New Jersey. His mind is clear and his interest in wild-life protection is keen, but he is unable to speak or to write. While he was active, he was one of the most resourceful and fearless champions of the cause of the vanishing birds. To him the farmers of America owe ten times more than they ever will know, and a thousand times more than they ever will repay, either to him or to his cause.

THE CAMP-FIRE CLUB OF AMERICA.—Although founded in 1897, this organization did not, as an organization, actively enter the field of protection until 1909. Since that time its work has covered a wide field, and enlisted the activities of many of its members. In order to provide a permanent fund for its work, each year the club members pay special annual dues that are devoted solely to the wild-life cause. The Committee on Game Protective Legislation and Preserves is a strong, hard-working body, and it has rendered good service in the lines of activity named in its title.

THE AMERICAN GAME PROTECTIVE AND PROPAGATION ASSOCIATION.—This is the youngest protective organization of national scope, having been organized in 1911. Its activities are directed by John B. Burnham, for five years Chief Game Protector of the State of New York, and a man thoroughly conversant with the business of protection. The organization is financed chiefly by means of a large annual fund contributed by several of the largest companies engaged in manufacturing firearms and ammunition, whose directors feel that the time has come when it is both wise and necessary to take practical measures to preserve the remnant of American game. Already the activities of this organization cover a wide range, and it has been particularly active in enlisting support for the Weeks bill for the federal protection of migratory birds.

THE WILD LIFE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION came into existence in 1910, rather suddenly, for the purpose of promoting the cause of the Bayne no-sale-of-game bill, and other measures. It raised the fund that met the chief expenses of that campaign. Since that time it has taken an important part in three other hotly contested campaigns in other states, two of which were successful.

At the present moment, and throughout the future, these New York organizations need large sums of money with which to meet the legitimate expenses of active campaigns for great measures. They need some money from outside the state of New York! Too much of the burden of national campaigning has been and is being left to be borne by the people of New York City. This policy is growing monotonous. There is every reason why Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston should each year turn $100,000 into the hands of these well-equipped and well managed national organizations whose officers know how to get results, all over our country.

Such organizations as these do not exist in other cities; and this is very unfortunate. New Orleans should be a center of protectionist activity for the South, San Francisco for the Pacific slope, and Chicago for the Middle West. Will they not become so?

TWO INDEPENDENT WORKERS.—At the western edge of the delta of the Mississippi there have arisen two men who loom up into prominence at an outpost of the Army of Defense which they themselves have established. For what they already have done in the creation of wild-fowl preserves in Louisiana, Edward A. McIlhenny and Charles Willis Ward deserve the thanks of the American People-at-large. An account of their splendid activities, and the practical results already secured, will be found in Chapter XXXVIII, on "Private Game Preserves," and in the story of Marsh Island. Already the home of these gentlemen, Avery Island, Louisiana, has become an important center of activity in wild-life protection.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW TO MAKE A NEW GAME LAW

THE LINE OF ACTION.—In the face of a calamity, the saving of life and property and the check of fire and flood depends upon good judgment and quick action at the critical moment. In emergencies, the slow and academic method will not serve. It is the run, the jump, the short cut and the violent method that saves life. If a woman is drowning, the sensible man does not wait for an introduction to her; nor does he run to an acquaintance to borrow his boat, or stop to put on a collar and necktie. He seizes the first boat that he can find, and breaks its lock and chain if necessary; or, failing that, he plunges in without one. When he reaches the imperiled party, he doesn't say, "Will you kindly let me save you?" He seizes her by the hair, and tries to keep her head above water, without ceremony.

That is to-day the condition and the treatment necessary regarding our remnant of wild life. We are compelled to act quickly, directly, and even violently at times, if we save anything worth while.

There is no time to depend upon the academic "education" of the public by the seductive illustrated lecture on birds, or the article about the habits of mammals. Those methods are all well enough in their places, but we must not depend upon them in emergencies like the present, for they do not pass laws or arrest lawbreakers. Give the public all of that material that you can supply, and the more the better, but for heaven's sake do not depend upon the spread of bird-lore "education" to stop the work of the game-hogs! If you do, all the wild life will be destroyed while the educational work is going on.

Often you can educate a gunner, and make him a protectionist; but you never can do it by showing him pictures of birds. He needs strong reasoning and exhortation, not bird-lore. To-day it is necessary to employ the most direct, forceful and at times even rude methods. Where slaughtering cannot be stopped by moral suasion, it must be stopped with a hickory club. The thing to do is to get results, and get them quickly, before it is too late!

If the business section of a town is burning down, no one goes into the suburbs to lecture on architecture, or exhibit pictures of fire apparatus. The rush is for water, fire-engines, red-blooded men and dynamite. When the birds all around you are being shot to death by poachers who fear not God nor regard man, and you need help to stop it on the instant, run to your neighbor's house, and ring his bell. If he fails to hear the bell, pound on his door until you jar the whole house.

When he comes down half-dressed, blinking and rubbing his eyes, shout at him:

"Come out! Your birds are all being shot to pieces!"

"Are they?" he will say. "But what can I do about it? I can't help it! I'm no game warden."

"Put on your clothes, get your shot-gun and come out and drive off the killing gang."

"But what good will that do? They will come back again."

"Not if we do our duty. We must have them arrested, and appear against them in court."

"But," says the sleepy citizen, "That won't do much good. The laws are not strict enough; and besides, they are not well enforced, even as they are!"

"Then let's make it our business to see that the present laws are enforced, and go to our members of the legislature, and have them pass some stronger laws."

And this brings me to a very important subject:

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HOW TO PASS A NEW LAW

We venture to say that the average citizen little realizes how possible it is to secure the passage of a law that is clearly necessary for the better protection of wild life and forests. Because of this, and of the necessity for exact knowledge, I shall here set down specific instructions on this subject.

THE PERSONAL EQUATION.—One determined man can secure the passage of a good law, provided he is reasonably intelligent and sufficiently determined. The man who starts a movement must make up his mind to follow it up, direct its fortunes, stay with it when the storms of opposition beat upon it, and never give up until it is signed by the governor. He must be willing to sacrifice his personal convenience, many of his pleasures, and work when his friends are asleep or pleasuring.

In working for the protection of wild life there is one mighty and unfailing source of consolation. It is this:

Your cause always gains in strength, and the cause of the destroyers always loses strength!

THE CHOICE OF A CAUSE.—Be broad-minded. Do not rush to the legislature with a demand for a law to permit the taking of bull-heads with June-bugs in the creeks of your township, or to give your county a specially early open season on quail in order that your boy may try his new gun before he goes back to college. Don't propose any "local" legislation; for in progressive states, local game legislation is coming strongly into disfavor,—just as it should! Legislate for your whole state, and nothing less.

Do not bother your legislature with a trivial bill. Choose a cause that is worth while to grown men, and it shall be well with you. It takes no more time to pass a large bill than a small one; and big men prefer to be identified with big measures.

Before you have a bill drawn, advise with men whose opinions are worth having. If the end you have in mind is a great and good one, go ahead, whether you secure support in advance or not. If the needs of the hour clearly demand the measure, go ahead, even though you start absolutely alone. A good measure never goes far without attracting company.

DRAFTING A BILL.—As a rule, the members of a legislative body do not have time to draft bills on subjects that are new or strange to them. A short bill is easily prepared by your own representative; but a lengthy bill, covering a serious reform, is a different matter. Hire a lawyer to draft the bill for you. A really good lawyer will not charge much for drafting a bill that is to benefit the public, and grind no private axe; but if the bill is long, and requires long study, even the good citizen must charge something.

Your bill must fully recognize existing laws. It must be either prohibitory or permissive; which means that it can say what shall not be done, or else that which may be done according to law, all other acts being forbidden. Your lawyer must decide which form is best. For my part, I greatly prefer the prohibitive form, as being the stronger and more impressive of the two. I think it is the province of the law to forbid the destruction of wild life and forests, under penalties.

PENALTIES.—Every law should provide a penalty for its infringement; but the penalty should not be out of all proportion to the offense. It is just as unwise to impose a fine of one dollar for killing song-birds for food as it is to provide for a fine of three hundred dollars. A fine that is too small fails to impress the prisoner, and it begets contempt for the law and the courts! A fine that is altogether too high is apt to be set aside by the court as "excessive." In my opinion, the best fines for wild life slaughter would be as follows:

Shooting, netting or trapping song-birds, and other non-game birds, each bird $5 to $25 Killing game birds out of season, each bird 10 to 50 Selling game contrary to law, each offense 100 to 200 Dynamiting fish 100 to 200 Seining or netting game fishes 50 to 200 Shooting birds with unfair weapons 10 to 100 Killing an egret, Carolina parakeet or whooping crane 100 to 200 Killing a mountain sheep or antelope anywhere in the U.S. 500 Killing an elk contrary to law 50 Killing a female deer, or fawn without horns, each offense 50 Trapping a grizzly bear for its skin 100

For killing a man "by mistake," the fine should be $500, payable in five annual instalments, to the court, for the family of the victim.

Whenever fines are not paid, the convicted party should be sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor at the rate of one-half day for each dollar of the fine imposed; and a sentence at hard labor should be the first option of the court! Many a rich and reckless poacher snaps his fingers at fines; but a sentence to hard labor would strike terror to the heart of the most brazen of them. To all such men, "labor" is the twin terror to "death."

THE INTRODUCTION OF A BILL.—Much wisdom is called for in the selection of legislative champions for wild-life bills. It is possible to state here only the leading principles involved.

Of course it is best to look for an introducer within the political party that is in the majority. A man who has many important bills on his hands is bound to give his best attention to his own pet measures; and it is best to choose a man who is not already overloaded. If a man has a host of enemies, pass him by. By all means choose a man whose high character and good name will be a tower of strength to your cause; and if necessary, wait for him to make up his mind. Mr. Lawrence W. Trowbridge waited three long and anxious weeks in the hope that Hon. George A. Blauvelt would finally consent to champion the Bayne bill in the New York Assembly. At last Mr. Blauvelt consented to take it up; and the time spent in waiting for his decision was a grand investment! He was the Man of all men to pilot that bill through the Assembly.

Very often the "quiet man" of a legislative body is a good man to champion a new and drastic measure. The quiet man who makes up his mind to take hold of "a hard bill to pass" often astonishes the natives by his ability to get results. Representative John F. Lacey, of Iowa, made his name a household word all over the United States by the quiet, steady, tireless and finally resistless energy with which for three long years in Congress he worked for "the Lacey bird bill." For years his colleagues laughed at him, and cheerfully voted down his bill. But he persisted. His cause steadily gained in strength; and his final triumph laid the axe at the root of a thousand crimes against wild life, throughout the length and breadth of this land. He rendered the people of America a service that entitles him to our everlasting gratitude and remembrance.

AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF A BILL.—As soon as a bill is introduced it is referred to a committee, to be examined and reported upon. If there is opposition,—and to every bill that really does something worth while there always is opposition,—then there is a "hearing." The committee appoints a day, when the friends and foes of the bill assemble, and express their views.

The week preceding a hearing is your busy week. You must plan your campaign, down to the smallest details. Pick the men whom you wish to have speak (for ten minutes each) on the various parts of your bill, and divide the topics and the time between them. Call upon the friends of the bill in various portions of the state to attend and "say something." Go up with a strong body of fine men. Have as many organizations represented as you possibly can! The "organizations" represent the great mass of people, and the voters also.

When you reach the hearing, hand to your bill's champion, who will be floor manager for your side, a clear and concise list of your speakers, carefully arranged and stating who's who. That being done, you have only to fill your own ten minutes and afterward enjoy the occasion.

THE VALUE OF ACCURACY.—It is unnecessary to say, in working for a bill,—always be sure of your facts. Never let your opponents catch you tripping in accuracy of statement. If you make one serious error, your enemies will turn it against you to the utmost. Better understate facts than overstate them. This shrewd old world quickly recognizes the careful, conservative man whose testimony is so true and so rock-founded that no assaults can shake it. Legislators are quick to rely on the words and opinions of the man who can safely be trusted. If your enemies try to overwhelm you with extravagant statements, that are unfair to your cause, the chances are that the men who judge between you will recognize them by their ear-marks, and discount them accordingly.

WORK WITH MEMBERS.—Sometimes a subject that is put before a legislative body is so new, and the thing proposed is so drastic, it becomes necessary to take measures to place a great many facts before each member of the body. Under such circumstances the member naturally desires to be "shown." The cleanest and finest campaigning for a reform measure is that in which both sides deal with facts, rather than with personal importunities. With a good cause in hand, it is a pleasure to prepare concise statements of facts and conditions from which a legislator may draw logical conclusions. Whenever a bill can be won through in that way, game protection work becomes a delight.

In all important new measures affecting the rights and the property of the whole people of a state, the conscientious legislator wishes to know how the people feel about it. When you tell him that "The wild life belongs to the whole people of the state; and this bill is in their interest," he needs to know for certain that your proposition is true. Sometimes there is only one way in which he can be fully convinced; and that is by the people of his district.

Then it becomes necessary to send out a general alarm, and call upon the People to write to their representatives and express their views. Give them, in printed matter, the latest facts in the case, forecast the future as you think it should be forecast, then demand that the men and women who are interested do write to their senators and assemblyman, and express their views, in their own way! Let there be no "machine letters" sent out, all ready for signature; for such letters are a waste of effort, and belong in the waste baskets to which they are quickly consigned. The members of legislative bodies hate them, and rightly, too. They want to hear from men who can think for themselves, give reasons of their own, and express their desires in their own way.

THE PRESS AND THE NEWSPAPERS.—It is impossible to overestimate the influence of the newspapers and the periodical press in general, in the protection of wild life. But for their sympathy, their support and their independent assaults upon the Army of Destruction, our game species would nearly all of them have been annihilated, long ago. Editors are sympathetic and responsive good-citizens, as keenly sensitive regarding their duties as any of the rest of us are, and from the earliest times of protection they have been on the firing line, helping to beat back the destroyers. It is indeed a rare sight to see an editor giving aid, comfort or advice to the enemy. I can not recall more than a score of articles that I have seen or heard of during thirty years in this field that opposed the cause of wild life protection.[K] At this moment, for instance, I bear in particularly grateful remembrance the active campaign work of the following newspapers:

[Footnote K: Just one hour after the above paragraph was written, a long telegram from San Francisco advised me that the Examiner of that city had begun an active and aggressive campaign for the sale of all kinds of game.]

The New York Times The New York Tribune The New York Herald The New York Globe The New York Mail and Express The New York World The New York Sun The Springfield (Mass.) Republican The Chicago Inter-Ocean The San Francisco Call The Rochester Union and Advertiser The Victoria Colonist The Brooklyn Standard-Union The New York Evening Post The New York Press The Buffalo News The Minneapolis Journal The Pittsburgh Index-Appeal The St. Louis Globe-Democrat The Philadelphia North American The Utica Observer The Washington Star.

These magazines have done good service in the cause; and some of them have spent many years on the firing line:

Forest and Stream The American Field Field and Stream Recreation (old and new) Rod and Gun in Canada In the Open Sports Afield Western Field Outdoor Life Shield's Magazine Sportsman's Review Outing Collier's Weekly The Independent Country Life Outdoor World Bird Lore

In campaigning, always appeal for the help of the newspapers. If there are no private axes to grind, they help generously. The weekly journals are of value, but the monthlies are printed so long in advance of their dates of issue that they seldom move fast enough to keep abreast of the procession. Their mechanical limitations are many and serious.

Every newspaper likes "exclusive" news, letters and articles. On that basis they will print about all the live matter that you can furnish. But at the same time, the important news of the campaign must be sent to the press broadcast, in the form of printed slips all ready for the foreman. Many of these are never used, but the others are; and it pays. The news in every slip must be vouched for by the sender, or it will not be used. Often it will appear as a letter signed by the sender; which is all right, only the news is most effective when printed without a signature. Do not count on the Associated Press; because its peculiar demands render it almost impossible for it to be utilized in game protection work.

HOW TO MEET OPPOSITION.—There is no rule for the handling of opposition that is fair and open. For opposition that is unfair and under-handed, there is one powerful weapon,—Publicity. The American people love fair play, and there is nothing so fatal to an unfair fighter as a searchlight, turned full on him without fear and without mercy. If it is reliably and persistently reported that some citizen who ought to be on the right side has for some dark reason become active on the wrong side, print the reports in a large newspaper, and ask him publicly if they are true. If the reports are false, he can quickly come out in a letter and say so, and end the matter. If they are true, the public will soon know it, and act accordingly.

ETERNAL VIGILANCE.—The progress of a bill must be watched by some competent person from day to day, and finally from hour to hour. I know one bill that was saved from defeat only because its promoter dragged it, almost by force, out of the hands of a tardy clerk, and accompanied it in person to the senate, where it was passed in the last hour of a session.

A bill should not be left to a long slumber in the drawer of a committee. Such delays nearly always are dangerous.

SIGNING THE BILL.—The promoter of a great measure always seeks the sympathy of the Chief Executive early in the day; but he should not make the diplomatic error of trying to exact promises or pledges in advance. Good judges do not give away their decisions in advance.

Because a Chief Executive remarks after a bill has been sent to him for signing that he "cannot approve it," it is no reason to give up in despair. Many an executive approval has been snatched at the last moment, as a brand from the burning. Ask for a hearing before the bill is acted upon. At the hearing, and before it and after, the People who wish the bill to become a law must express themselves,—by letter, by telegram, and by appeal in person. If the governor becomes convinced that an overwhelming majority of his people desire him to sign the bill, he will sign it, even though personally he is opposed to it! The hall mark of a good governor is a spirit of obedience to the will of the great majority.

Not until your bill has been signed by the governor are you ready to go home with a quiet mind, take off your armor, and put your ear to the telephone while you hear some one say as your only reward,—"Well done, good and faithful servant."

AS TO "CREDIT."—Do not count upon receiving any credit for what you do in the cause of game protection, outside the narrow circle of your own family and your nearest friends. This is a busy world; and the human mind flits like a restless bird from one subject to another. The men who win campaigns are forgotten by the general public, in a few hours! There is nothing more fickle or more fleeting than the bubble called "popular applause." Judging by the experiences of great men, I should say that it has no substance, whatever. The most valuable reward of the man who fights in a great cause, and helps to win victories, is the profound satisfaction that comes to every good citizen who bravely does his whole duty, and leaves the world better than he found it, without the slightest thought of gallery applause.