Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924080030889 Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCnr/rrU Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell's replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992. The production of this volume was supported by the United States Department of Education, Higher Education Act, Tide II-C. Scanned as part of the A. R. Mann Library project to preserve and enhance access to the Core Historical Literature of the Agricultural Sciences. Titles included in this collection are listed in the volumes published by the Cornell University Press in the series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences, 1991-1996, Wallace C. Olsen, series editor. Cm ^ S o O o B s a o o e- 1^ bo ■o c O ri U O "^ O 0) m ■" O 'S d C oj cj O c o fe^o S^-g o MS C p . (-1 O w C ^ w 0) j:j >. o -^ 2 J3 5 S S "oj "-(3 "C -SI S CO 0) 0) S-i OS o td o 2 S a S cd 'p. a i-H 05 I— I o o CO w w K H Q 2 O 1-1 o w K OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE ITS EXTERMINATION AND PRESERVATION BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY, Sc.D. DIRECTOR OF THE NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL PARK; AUTHOR OF "THE AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY"; EX-PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN BISON SOCIETY WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS "Hew to the line! Let the chips fall where they will." — Old Exhortation. "Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." — Othello'. NEW YORK 1913 Copyright, 1913, by WILLIAM T. HORN AD AY First Publication, Jan, 1913. SPECIAL NOTICE For the benefit of the cause that this book represents, the author freely extends to all peri- odicals and lecturers the privilege of reproducing any of the maps and illustrations in this volume except the bird portraits, the white-tailed deer and ante! ope, and the maps and pictures specially copyrighted by other persons, and so recorded. This privilege does not cover reproductions in books, without special permission. QIlBrIt Sc JUrttta PRIMTERS 20B WEST 3BTH STREET NEW YORK Willtam iirttijtr FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES, AND LIFE-LONG CHAMPION OF AMERICAN BIRDS THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY A SINCERE ADMIRER "7 drink to him, he is not here. Yet I would guard his glory; A knight without reproach or fear Should live in song and story." —Walsh. FOREWORD The preservation of animal and plant life, and of the general beauty of Nature, is one of the foremost duties of the men and women of to-day. It is an imperative duty, because it must be performed at once, for other- wise it will be too late. Every possible means of preservation, — senti- mental, educational and legislative, — must be employed. The present warning issues with no uncertain sound, because this great battle for preservation and conservation cannot be won by gentle tones, nor by appeals to the aesthetic instincts of those who have no sense of beauty, or enjoyment of Nature. It is necessary to sound a loud alarm, to present the facts in very strong language, backed up by irrefutable statistics and by photographs which tell no lies, to establish the law and enforce it if needs be with a bludgeon. This book is such an alarm call. Its forceful pages remind me of the sounding of the great bells in the watch-towers of the cities of the Middle Ages which called the citizens to arms to protect their homes, their liber- ties and their happiness. It is undeniable that the welfare and happiness of our own and of all future generations of Americans are at stake in this battle for the preservation of Nature against the selfishness, the ignorance, or the cruelty of her destroyers. We no longer destroy great works of art. They are treasured, and regarded as of priceless value; but we have yet to attain the state of civilization where the destruction of a glorious work of Nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird, is regarded with equal abhorrence. The whole earth is a poorer place to live in when a colony of exquisite egrets or birds of paradise is destroyed in order that the plumes may decorate the hat of some lady of fashion, and ultimately find their way into the rubbish heap. The people of all the New England States are poorer when the ignorant whites, foreigners, or negroes of our southern states destroy the robins and other song birds of the North for a mess of pottage. Travels through Europe, as well as over a large part of the North American continent, have convinced me that nowhere is Nature being destroyed so rapidly as in the United States. Except within our con- servation areas, an earthly paradise is being turned into an earthly hades; and it is not savages nor primitive men who are doing this, but men and women who boast of their civilizatlon. Air and water are polluted, rivers and streams serve as sewers and dumping grounds, forests are swept away and fishes are driven from the streams. Many birds are becoming extinct, and certain mammals are on the verge of extermina- viii FOREWORD tion. Vulgar advertisements hide the landscape, andin all that disfigures the wcnderftd heritage of the beauty of Nature to-day, we Americans are in the lead. Fortunately the tide of destruction is ebbing, and the tide of con- servation is coming in. Americans are practical. Like all other northern peoples, they love money and will sacrifice much for it, but they are also full of idealism, as well as of moral and spiritual energy. The in- fluence of the splendid body of Americans and Canadians who have turned their best forces of mind and language into literature and into political power for the conservation movement, is becoming stronger every day. Yet we are far from the point where the momentum of conservation is strong enough to arrest and roll back the tide of destruc- tion ; and this is especially true with regard to our fast vanishing animal life. The facts and figures set forth in this volume will astonish all those lovers of Nature and friends of the animal world who are living in a false or imaginary sense of security. The logic of these facts is inexorable. As regards our birds and mammals, the failures of supposed protection in America — ^under a system of free shooting — are so glaring that we are confident this exposure will lead to sweeping reforms. The author of this work is no amateur in the field of wild-life protection. His ideas concerning methods of reform are drawn from long and successful ex- perience. The states which are still behind in this movement may well give serious heed to his summons, and pass the new laws that are so urgently demanded to save the vanishing remnant. The New York Zoological Society, which is cooperating with many other organizations in this great movement, sends forth this work in the belief that there is no one who is more ardently devoted to the great cause or rendering more effective service in it than William T. Hornaday. We believe that this is a great book, destined to exert a world-wide influence, to be translated into other languages, and to arouse the de- fenders and lovers of our vanishing animal life before it is too late. Henry Fairfield Osborn, 10 December, 1912. President of the New York Zoological Society PREFACE The writing of this book has taught me many things. Beyond ques- tion, we are exterminating our finest species of mammals, birds and fishes according to law ! I am appalled by the mass of evidence proving that throughout the entire United States and Canada, in every state and province, the ex- isting legal system for the preservation of wild life is fatally defective. There is not a single state in our country from which the killable game is not being rapidly and persistently shot to death, legally or illegally, very much more rapidly than it is breeding, with extermination for the most of it close in sight. This statement is not open to argument; for millions of men l^no'w^that it is literally true. We are living in a fool's paradise. The rage for wild-life slaughter is far more prevalent to-day through- out the world than it was in 1872, when the buffalo butchers paved the prairies of Texas and Colorado with festering carcasses. From one end of our continent to the other, there is a restless, resistless desire to "kill, kill!" I have been shocked by the accumulation of evidence showing that all over our country and Canada fully nine-tenths of our protective laws have practically been dictated by the killers of the game, and that in all save a very few instances the hunters have been exceedingly careful to provide "open seasons" for slaughter, as long as any game remains to kill! And yet, the game of North America does not belong wholly and ex- clusively to the men who kill ! The other ninety-seven per cent of the People have vested rights in it, far exceeding those of the three per cent. Posterity has claims upon it that no honest man can ignore. I am now going to ask both the true sportsman and the people who do not kill wild things to awake, and do their plain duty in protecting and preserving the game and other wild life which belongs partly to us, but chiefly to those who come after us. Can they be aroused, before it is too late ? The time to discuss tiresome academic theories regarding " bag limits " and different "open seasons" as being sufficient to preserve the game, has gone by! We have reached the point where the alternatives are long closed seasons or a gameless continent; and we must choose one or the other, speedily. A continent without, wild life is like a forest with no leaves on the trees. 3t PREFACE The great increase in the slaughter of song birds for food, by the negroes and poor whites of the South, has become an unbearable scourge to our migratory birds, — the very birds on which farmers north and south depend for protection from the insect hordes, — the very birds that are most near and dear to the people of the North. Song-bird slaughter is growing and spreading, with the decrease of the game birds ! It is a matter that requires instant attention and stern repression. At the present moment it seems that the only remedy lies in federal pro- tection for all migratory birds, — because so many states will not do their duty. We are weary of witnessing the greed, selfishness and cruelty of "civilized" man toward the wild creatures of the earth. We are sick of tales of slaughter and pictures of carnage. It is time for a sweeping Reformation; and that is precisely what we now demand. I have been a sportsman myself; but times have changed, and we must change also. When game was plentiful, I believed that it was right for men and boys to kill a limited amount of it for sport and for the table. But the old basis has been swept away by an Army of De- struction that now is almost beyond all control. Wc must awake, and arouse to the new situation, face it like men, and adjust our minds to the new conditions. The three million gunners of to-day must no longer expect or demand the same generous hunting privileges that were right for hunters fifty years ago, when game was fifty times as plentiful as it is now and there was only one killer for every fifty now in the field. The fatalistic idea that bag-limit laws can save the game is to-day the curse of all our game birds, mammals and fishes! It is a fraud, a delusion and a snare. That miserable fetich has been worshipped much too long. Our game is being exterminated, everywhere, by blind insist- ence upon "open seasons," and solemn reliance upon "legal bag-limits." If a majority of the people of America feel that so long as there is any game alive there must be an annual two months or four months open season for its slaughter, then assuredly we soon will have a gameless continent. ^ The only thing that will save the game is by stopping the killing of it ! In establishing and promulgating this principle, the cause of wild-life protection greatly needs three things: money, labor, and publicity. With the first, we can secure the second and third. But can we get it, — and get it in time to save ? This volume is in every sense a contribution to a Cause ; and as such it everwUl remain. I wish the public to receive it on that basis. So much important material has drifted straight to it from other hands that this lonexpected aid seems to the author like a good omen. The manuscript has received the benefit of a close and critical read- ing and correcting by my comrade on the firing-line and esteemed friend, Mr. Madison Grant, through which the text was greatly improved. But for the splendid encouragement and assistance that I have received from PREFACE xi him and from Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn the work involved woidd have borne down rather heavily. The four chapters embracing the "New Laws Needed; A RoU-Call of the States," were critically inspected, corrected and brought down to date by Dr. T. S. Palmer, our highest authority on the game laws of the Nation and the States. For this valuable service the author is deeply grateful. Of course the author is alone responsible for all the opinions and conclusions herein recorded, and for all errors that appear outside of quotations. I trust that the Reader will kindly excuse and forget all the typo- graphic and clerical errors that may have escaped me in the rush that had to be made against Time. h ,'- ,■• University Hbk>hts, New York, W. T. H. December 1, 1912. CONTENTS Part I. — Extermination Chapter Page •^ *!. — Former Abundance of Wild Life 1 II. — Extinct Species OF North American Birds 7 III. — The Next Candidates for Oblivion 17 ^ "IV. — Extinct and Nearly Extinct Species of Mammals. 34 V. — The Extermination of Species, State by State. ... 42 ~" VI. — The Regular Army of Destruction . 53 VII. — The Guerrillas of Destruction 63 VIII. — The Unseen Foes of Wild Life 73 T^. — Destruction of Wild Life by Diseases 82 •5^. — Destruction of Wild Life by the Elements. . . 88 XI. — Slaughter of SoNG-BiRDS by Italians 94 XII. — Destruction of Song-Birds by Southern Negroes and Poor Whites • 105 XIII. — Extermination of Birds for Women's Hats 114 XIV. — The Bird Tragedy on Laysan Island 137 — *5tV. — Unfair Firearms and Shooting Ethics 143 -^"^f^VI. — The Present and Future of North American Big Game — 1 156 XVII. — The Present and Future of North American Big Game— II 171 XVIII. — The Present AND Future OF African Game. .. 181 XIX. — The Present and Future of Game in Asia 188 XX. — Destruction of Birds in the Far East. By C. William Beebe 195 XXI. — The vSavage Viewpoint OF the Gunner. ... 203 Part II. — Preservation XXII.T— Our Annual Losses by Insects 208 XXIII.— The Economic Value of Birds 213 XXIV. — Game and Agriculture: Deer as a Food Supply. . 234 CONTENTS xiii Chapter Page "' """^XV. — Law and Sentiment as Factors in Preservation . . 244 XXVI. — The Army of the Defense 247 XXVIL— How TO Make a New Game Law 258 //XXVIIL — New Laws Needed: A Roll-Call of the States — I 265 I XXIX. — New Laws Needed: A Roll-Call of the States— II 275 y XXX. — New Laws Needed: A Roll-Call OF THE States — III 283 \^XXI. — New Laws Needed: A Roll-Call of the States — tV 292 XXXII. — Need for a Federal Migratory Bird Law, No- Sale-of-Game Law, and Others 304 XXXIII. — Bringing Back the Vanished Birds and Game. . . . 313 -■ — ^XXXIV. — Introduced Species that Have Been Beneficial. . . 324 XXXV. — Introduced Species that Have BEcoi-ir Pests . . . 330 """'^XXVI. — National and State Qame Preserves and Bird Refuges 335 CXXXVII. — Game Preserves and Game Laws in Canada 350 - XXXVIII.— Private Game Preserves 358 XXXIX. — British Game Preserves in Africa 364 -f- *^XL. — Breeding Game and Fur in Captivity 369 -_;-=r -7- *XLI. — Teaching Wild-Life Protection TO the Young. . . 376 . -< fXLII. — Ethics of Sportsmanship 382~ XLIII. — The Duty of American Zoologists to American Wild Life 386 -f XLIV. — The Greatest Need of the Cause; and the Duty of the Hour 393 ILLUSTRATIONS The Folly of 1857 and the Lesson of 1912 Frontispiece Shall We Leave Any One of Them Open ? .... 6 Six Recently Exterminated North American Birds 9 Sacred to the Memory of Exterminated Birds. 15 Whooping Cranes in the Zoological Park 19 California Condor 22 Primated Grouse, or "Prairie Chicken" ... 25 Sage Grouse . . 26 Snowy Egrets in the Mcllhenny Preserve 27 Wood- Duck 29 Gray Squirrel 32 Skeleton of a Rhytina 36 Burchell's Zebra 37 Thylacine, or Tasmanian Wolf 38 West Indian Seal 39 California Elephant Seal 40 The Regular Army of Destruction . 55 G. O. Shields 58 Two Gunners of Kansas City 61 Why the Sandhill Crane is Becoming Extinct 62 A Market Gunner at Work on Marsh Island 64 Ruffed Grouse 65 A Lawful Bag of Ruffed Grouse . 66 Snow Bunting 68 A Hunting Cat and Its Victim 76 Eastern Red Squirrel 79 Cooper's Hawk 80 Sharp-Shinned Hawk 81 The Cat that Killed Fifty-eight Birds in One Year 81 An Italian Roccolo on Lake Como . 95 Dead Song-Birds 104 The Robin of the North 107 The Mocking-Bird of the South 107 Northern Robins Ready for Southern Slaughter 108 Southern-Negro Method of Combing Out the Wild Life Ill Beautiful and Curious Birds Destroyed for the Feather Trade — I. . 115 Sixteen Hundred Hummingbirds at Two Cents Each 116 Beautiful and Curious Birds Destroyed for the Feather Trade — II . 118 Beautiful and Curious Birds — III 123 Fight in England Against the Use of Plumage 128 ILLUSTRATIONS xv Young Egrets, Unable to Fly, Starving 132 Snowy Egret Dead on Her Nest 132 Miscellaneous Bird Skins, Eight Cents Each 135 Laysan Albatrosses, Before the Great Slaughter 138 Laysan Albatross Rookery, After the Great Slaughter 139 Acres of Gidl and Albatross Bones 140 Shed Filled with Wings of Slaughtered Birds 141 Four of the Seven Machine Guns 144 The Champion Game-Slaughter Case 147 Slaughtered According to Law 149 A Letter that Tells its Own Story 151 The "Sunday Gun" 154 The Prong-Horned Antelope 160 Hungry Elk in Jackson Hole 168 The Wichita National Bison Herd 179 Pheasant Snares 197 Pheasant Skins Seized at Rangoon 198 Deadfall Traps in Burma 199 One Morning's Catch of Trout near Spokane 205 The Cut-Worm 209 The Gypsy Moth 211 Downy Woodpecker 214 Baltimore Oriole 217 Nighthawk 218 Purple Martin 219 Bob- White 221 Rose-Breasted Grosbeak 223 Barn Owl 225 Golden-Winged Woodpecker 227 KUdeer Plover 230 Jacksnipe 230 A Food Supply of White-Tailed Deer 235 White-Tailed Deer 239 Notable Protectors of Wild Life: Madison Grant, Henry Fairfield Osbom, John F. Lacey, and William Dutcher 249 Notable Protectors: Forbush, Pearson, Bumham, Napier. ... ... 251 Notable Protectors : Phillips, Kalbfus, Mcllhenny, Ward 255 Band-Tailed Pigeon ! . . 273 Six Wild Chipmunks Dine with Mr. Loring 315 Chickadee, Tamed 316 Chipmunk, Tamed 316 Object Lesson in Bringing Back the Ducks 317 Gulls and Terns of Our Coast 321 Egrets and Herons in Sanctuary on Marsh Island 363 Bird Day at Carrick, Pa 379 Distributing Bird Boxes and Fruit Trees 381 MAPS The Wilderness of North America 155 Former and Existing Ranges of the Elk 164 Map Showing the Disappearance of the Lion 183 States and Provinces Requiring Resident Licenses . 303 Eighteen States Prohibit the Sale of Game 307 Map Used in Campaign for Bayne Law 309 United States National Game Preserves 339 Bird Reservations on the Gtilf Coast and Florida . 349 Marsh Island and Adjacent Preserves . 361 Most Important Game Preserves of Africa 366 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE PART I. EXTERMINATION CHAPTER I THE FORMER ABUNDANCE OF WILD LIFE " By my labors my vineyard Jiourished. But Ahab came. Alas! for Nahoth." In order that the American people may correctly understand and judge the question of the extinction or preservation of our wild life, it is necessarj- to recall the near past. It is not necessary, however, to go far into the details of history; for a few quick glances at a few high points will be quite sufficient for the purpose in view. Any man who reads the books which best tell the story of the development of the American colonies of 1712 into the American nation of 1912, and takes due note of the wild-life features of the tale, will say without hesitation tha^when the American people received this land from the bountiful hand of Nature, it was endowed wth a magnificent and all-pervading supply of valuable wild creatures. | The pioneers and the early settlers were too busy even to take due note of that fact, or to comment upon it, save in very fragmentary ways. Nevertheless, the wild-life abundance of early American da\"s survived down to so late a period that it touched the lives of millions of people now living. Any man 55 years of age who when a boy had a taste for " hunting," — ^for at that time there were no " sportsmen " in America, — will remember the flocks and herds of wild creatures that he saw. and which made upon his mind many indelible impressions. "Abundance" is the word with which to describe the original animal life that stocked our country, and all North America, only a short half- century ago. Throughout every state, on every shore-line, in all the millions of fresh water lakes, ponds and rivers, on every mountain range, in every forest, and even on every desert, the wild flocks and herds held sway. It was impossible to go beyond the settled haunts of civilized man and escape them. It was a full century after the complete settlement of New England and the Virginia colonies that the wonderful big-game fauna of the great plains and Rocky Mountains was really discovered; but the bison 2 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE millions, the antelope millions, the mule deer, the mountain sheep and mountain goat were there, all the time. In the early days, the millions of pinnated grouse and quail of the central states attracted no serious attention from the American people-at -large ; but they lived and flour- ished just the same, far down in the seventies, when the greedy market gunners systematically slaughtered them, and barreled them up for "the market," while the foolish farmers calmly permitted them to do it. We obtain the best of our history of the former abundance of North American wild life first from the pages of Audubon and Wilson; next, from the records left by such pioneers as Lewis and Clark, and last from the testimony of living men. To all this we can, many of us, add observa- tions of our own. To me the most striking fact that stands forth in the story of American wild life one hundred years ago is the wide extent and thoroughness of its distribution. Wide as our country is, and marvelous as it is in the diversity of its climates, its soils, its topography, its flora, its riches and its poverty, Nature gave to each square mile and to each acre a generous quota of wild creatures, according to its ability to maintain living things. No pioneer ever pushed so far, or into regions so difficult or so remote, that he did not find awaiting him a host of birds and beasts. Sometimes the pioneer was not a good hunter; usually he was a stupid fisherman; but the "game" was there, nevertheless. The time was when every farm had its quota. The part that the wild life of America played in the settlement and development of this continent was so far-reaching in extent, and so enormous in potential value, that it fairly staggers the imagination. From the landing of the Pilgrims down to the present hour the wild game has been the mainstay and the resource against starvation of the path- finder, the settler, the prospector, and at times even the railroad-builder. In view of what the bison millions did for the Dakotas, Montana, Wyom- ing, Kansas and Texas, it is only right and square that those states should now do something for the perpetual preservation of the bison species and all other big game that needs help. For years and years, the antelope millions of the Montana and Wyo- ming grass-lands fed the scout and Indian-fighter, freighter, cowboy and surveyor, ranchman and sheep-herder; but thus far I have yet to hear of one Western state that has ever spent one penny directly for the pre- servation of the antelope ! And to-day we are in a hand-to-hand fight in Congress, and in Montana, with the Wool-Growers Association, which maintains in Washington a keen lobbyist to keep aloft the tariff on wool, and prevent Congress from taking 15 square miles of grass lands on Snow Creek, Montana, for a National Antelope Preserve. All that the wool- growers want is the entire earth, all to themselves. Mr. McClure, the Secretary of the Association says: "The proper place in which to preserve the big game of the West is in city parks, where it can be protected." FORMER ABUNDANCE 3 To the colonist of the East and pioneer of the West, the white-tailed deer was an ever present help in time of trouble. Without this omni- present animal, and the supply of good meat that each white flag repre- sented, the commissariat difficulties of the settlers who won the country as far westward as Indiana would have been many times greater than they were. The backwoods Pilgrim's progress was like this: Trail, deer; cabin, deer; clearing; bear, corn, deer; hogs, deer; cattle, wheat, independence. And yet, how many men are there to-day, out of our ninety millions of Americans and pseudo-Americans, who remember with any feeling of gratitude the part played in American history by the white-tailed deer? Very few! How many Americans are there in our land who now preserve that deer for sentimental reasons, and because his forbears were nation-builders? As a matter of fact, are there any? On every eastern pioneer's monument, the white-tailed deer should figure ; and on those of the Great West, the bison and the antelope should be cast in enduring bronze, "lest we forget!" The game birds of America played a different part from that of the deer, antelope and bison. In the early days, shotguns were few, and shot was scarce and dear. The wild turkey and goose were the smallest birds on which a rifleman could afford to expend a btillet and a whole charge of powder. It was for this reason that the deer, bear, bison, and elk dis- appeared from the eastern United States while the game birds yet re- mained abundant. With the disappearance of the big game came the fat steer, hog and hominy, the wheat-field, fruit orchard and poultry galore. The game birds of America, as a class and a mass,. have not been swept away to ward off starvation or to rescue the perishing. Even back in the sixties and seventies, very, very few men of the North thought of killing prairie chickens, ducks and quail, snipe and woodcock, in order to keep the hunger wolf from the door. The process was too slow and un- certain; and besides, the really-poor man rarely had the gun and am- munition. Instead of attempting to live on birds, he hustled for the staple food products that the soil of his own farm could produce. First, last and nearly all the time, the game birds of the United States as a whole, have been sacrificed on the altar of Rank Luxury, to tempt appetities that were tired of fried chicken and other farm delicacies. To-day, even the average poor man hunts birds for the joy of the outing, and the pampered epicures of the hotels and restaurants buy game birds, and eat small portions of them, solely to tempt jaded appetites. If there is such a thing as "class" legislation, it is that which permits a few sordid market-shooters to slaughter the birds of the whole people in order to sell them to a few epicures. The game of a state belongs to the whole people of the state. The Supreme Court of the United States has so decided. (Geer vs. Con- necticut). If it is abundant, it is a valuable asset. The great value of the game birds of America lies not in their meat pounds as they lie upon 4 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE the table, but in the temptation they annually put before millions of field-weary farmers and desk-weary clerks and merchants to get into their beloved hunting togs, stalk out into the lap of Nature, and say "Begone, dull Care!" And the man who has had a fine day in the painted woods, on the bright waters of a duck-haunted bay, or in the golden stubble of Sep- tember, can fill his day and his soul with six good birds just as well as with sixty. The idea that in order to enjoy a fine day in the open a man must kill a wheel-barrow load of birds, is a mistaken idea; and if ob- stinately adhered to, it becomes vicious ! The Outing in the Open is the thing, — not the blood-stained feathers, nasty viscera and Death in the game-bag. One quail on a fence is worth more to the world than ten in a bag. The farmers of America have, by their own supineness and lack of foresight, permitted the slaughter of a stock of game birds which, had it been properly and wisely conserved, would have furnished a good annual shoot to every farming man and boy of sporting instincts through the past, right down to the present, and far beyond. They have allowed milHons of dollars worth of their birds to be coolly snatched away from them by the greedy market-shooters. There is one state in America, and so far as I know only one, in which there is at this moment an old-time abundance of game-bird life. That is the state of Louisiana. The reason is not so very far to seek. For the birds that do not migrate, — quail, wild turkeys and doves, — the cover is yet abundant. For the migratory game birds of the Mississippi Valley, Louisiana is a grand central depot, with terminal facilities that are un- surpassed. Her reedy shores, her vast marshes, her long coast line and abundance of food furnish what should be not only a haven but a heaven for ducks and geese. After running the gauntlet of guns all the way from Manitoba and Ontario to the Sunk Lands of Arkansas, the shores of the Gulf must seem like heaven itself. The great forests of Louisiana shelter deer, turkeys, and fur-bearipg animals galore; and rabbits and squirrels abound. Naturally, this abundance of game has given rise to an extensive industry in shooting for the market. The "big interests" outside the state send their agents into the best game districts, often bringing in their own force of shooters. They comb out the game in enormous quantities, without leaving to the people of Louisiana any decent and fair quid-pro-quo for having despoiled them of their game and shipped a vast annual product outside, to create wealth elsewhere. At present, however, we are but incidentally interested in the short- sightedness of the people of the Pelican State. As a state of oldtime abundance in killable game, the killing records that were kept in the year 1909-10 possess for us very great interest. They throw a startling search- light on the subject of this chapter,- — the former abundance of wild life. From the records that with great pains and labor were gathered by the State Game Commission, and which were furnished me for use FORMER A B UNDA NCE 5 here by President Frank M. Miller, we set forth this remarkable exhibit of ol(J-fashioned abundance in game, a.d. 1909. Offh'AL Record of Game Killed in Louisiana During the Season fl2 Months) of 1909-10 Birds Wild Ducks, sea and river Coots . . . Geese and Brant . . . Snipe, Sandpiper and Plover Quail (Bob- White) Doves . . . Wild Turkeys .3,176,000 280,740 202,210 606,635 .1,140,750 310,660 2,219 Total number of game birds killed .5,719,214 Mammals Deer Squirrels and Rabbits . '5,470 690,270 Total of game mammals . Pur-bearing mammals . 695,740 .1,971,922 Total of mammals . .2,667,662 Grand total of birds and mammals .8,386,876 Of the thousands of slaughtered robins, it wrould.seem that no records exist. It is to be understood that the annual slaughter of wild life in Louisiana never before reached such a pitch as now. Without drastic measures, what will be the inevitable result? Does any man suppose that even the wild millions of Louisiana can long withstand such slaughter as that shown by the official figures given above? It is wildly impossible. But the darkest hour is just before the dawn. At the session of the Louisiana legislature that was held in the spring of 1912, great improve- ments were made in the game laws of that state. The most important feature was the suppression of wholesale market hunting, by persons >vho are not residents of the state. A very limited amount of game may be sold and served as food in public places, but the restrictions placed upon this traffic are so efifective that they will vastly reduce the annual slaughter. In other respects, also, the cause of wild life protection gained much ; for which great credit is due to Mr. Edward A. Mcllhenny. It is the way of Americans to feel that because game is abundant in a given place at a given time, it always will be abundant, and may there- fore be slaughtered without limit. That was the case last winter in California during the awful slaughter of band-tailed pigeons, as will be not ed e lsewhere . ^Tt^time for all men to be told in the plainest terms that there never has existed, anywhere in historic times, a volume of wild life so great that civilized man could not quickly exterminate it by his methods of de- OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE .-'-x 'P-^^I '<>