562 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Oregon, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. A new law 

 adopted by the legislature of Wisconsin having provided for com- 

 prehensive civil-service examinations for deputy wardenships, the 

 civil service commission of the State requested and received the aid 

 of the Biological Survey in preparing and holding oral examinations 

 for deputy game wardens. The counties of the upper peninsula of 

 Michigan were visited by another representative of the oiiice to ascer- 

 tain the extent of the destruction of deer by wolves and to determine 

 the most successful methods of reducing the number of wolves. As 

 a result of cooperative effort on the part of the state warden and the 

 Biological Survey, duck shooting and grebe hunting in southwest 

 Oregon around the Klamath Lake Reservation was practically abol- 

 ished, a number of convictions being secured. Cooperation was had 

 with Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. Illegal traffic in 

 game in the Kankakee Valley, Indiana, was broken up, and unlawful 

 shipment of game in southern Illinois to East St. Louis by way of 

 Cairo was uncovered and suppressed. 



INTERSTATE COMMERCE IN GAME. 



The principal center of illegal traffic in game has hitherto been the 

 Middle AVest, and though under the original Lacey Act much has 

 been done to reduce the extent of such traffic, yet the weakness of 

 both federal and state laws has made it impossible to deal with it 

 effectively. Sections 3 and 4 of the Lacey Act regulating interstate 

 commerce in game were reenacted in modified and much stronger 

 form as sections 242, 243, and 244 of the Criminal Code of the United 

 States passed by Congress March 4, 1909, and before the new law 

 took effect on January 1. 1910, steps were taken to prepare for its 

 enforcement. The strengthening of the federal law and the passage 

 of stronger state laws have developed a neAv situation, as shown by 

 personal investigations in several important cities and ducking cen- 

 ters in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Through the activity of 

 local officials the situation is practically under control in St. Louis, 

 Mo., Cairo, 111., Louisville, Ky., and New Orleans, La., _ which have 

 heretofore furnished extensive and numerous operations in the illegal 

 marketing of game. 



The first case which arose under the new code involved the ship- 

 ment from New Orleans to Chicago of 3 barrels marked " fish," but 

 actually containing TO wild ducks each. Conviction was secured 

 in the federal court at New Orleans, and the two shippers were fined 

 $50 each. A few days before the new code went into effect a case 

 of illegal shipment of game under a false mark occurred in Indi- 

 ana. A box shipped from Demotte, Ind., on DecemJDer 28, 1909, 

 containing G3 game birds was seized in Chicago, and, as it had proved 

 extremely difficult to secure convictions merely for false marking 

 of packages under the original Liacej Act, the matter was placed in 

 the hands of the Indiana commissioner of fisheries and game, who 

 not only secured conviction of the shipper, but brought action against 

 four and convicted three persons who had sold the birds for shipment. 

 The total fines and costs in the case amounted to $219.60 — more than 

 the maximum fine would have been had the case been prosecuted in 

 the federal court. Three cases of falsely marked packages of game 



