96 WITH THE U. S. NATURALISTS 



''Mainly because the game laws don't let you," 

 the oflQcial retorted. "Men like you forget that 

 it's only because there is a law that there's any 

 commercial profit in breaking it. Suppose there 

 weren't any game laws, how long do you think it 

 would be before the city marketmen sent a couple 

 of dozen men here with motor boats and pump 

 guns? They'd clean up all the duck in Currituck 

 and Pamlico Sounds in a couple of weeks and 

 where would you be? If it weren't for the law, 

 you wouldn't have the chance to shoot half a dozen 

 duck a season and in ten years there wouldn't be 

 a duck wintering in the country. ' ' 



'*Yo' don't know what yo're talkin' 'bout," 

 said the pot-hunter, contemptuously, ''yo' ain't 

 never seen the Duck that come here. There's mil- 

 lions of 'em. Yo' couldn't kill 'em off with an 

 army shootin' 'em down," 



"You think not!" said the expert; "let me tell 

 you something. Do you remember the Wild or 

 Passenger Pigeon ? You must have seen plenty of 

 them when you were young." 



"What did they look like?" 



"Like a Mourning Dove, only twice as big, blue 

 on the back, salmon-buff on the breast and white at 

 the tip of the tail-feathers. ' ' 



