64 Wild Bird Guests 



even when he knows that the law is unfair to the 

 birds and that they cannot hold their own against 

 it. If there is no law to stop him he kills all the 

 birds he can, and resorts to the use of automatic 

 and pump guns and other unfair weapons because 

 it is not "sport," but birds, that he is trying 

 to get. With such weapons as these in a place 

 where birds are plentiful, a man can kill from 

 two hundred to four hundred wild ducks or wild 

 geese in a day. The damage which can be 

 inflicted on game birds and waterfowl by this 

 class of gunner has been greatly increased by the 

 invention of the automobile and the power boat, 

 both of which enable him to hunt over a vastly 

 wider field in a given time than was possible 

 before. 



As a destroyer of game birds the market- 

 hunter is perhaps the worst of all. Most other 

 gunners go hunting occasionally or for a few days 

 at a time, but the market-man makes a business 

 of hunting and if the law permits goes out every 

 day as long as there are any birds left to shoot. 

 Of course he uses the automatic and pump shot 

 guns, because with them he can get more birds 

 and more birds to him mean more money. 



The farmers are to a large extent responsible 

 for the great decrease among our birds of prey. 

 They are not the only ones to blame for there are 



