24 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 
has been wholly prohibited—would not only have reduced — 
the numbers of wild fowl as a whole to seriously small pro- 
portions, but would undoubtedly have led to the extermina- 
tion of certain species. Fall shooting is perfectly legitimate 
so long as the number that may be killed is limited by law, 
as it involves only the destruction of a portion of the annual 
increase; that is, it is using the interest on the capital stock 
of birds. But spring shooting implies the destruction of 
the breeding stock, that is, of the capital. The supporters 
of spring shooting either refused or failed to realize that, 
even though the birds, during migration, are not actually 
- breeding, they are generally mated. Many species of ducks 
mate as early as February, and the killing of such birds in- 
volved the reduction of the number of birds required to 
maintain an increase sufficient to provide legitimate shoot- 
ing in the fall without effecting a reduction in the total 
number. 
But of all factors responsible for the enormous reduction 
in the numbers of our wild fowl the market gunner was one 
of the most serious. Absolutely devoid of any desire to 
conserve birds, and inbred with the sole desire to kill as 
many birds as possible, and in the shortest time, the market 
gunner was only limited by the physical impossibility of 
killing more than a certain number of birds per day. The 
great slaughtering-grounds on which our Canadian-bred 
birds were killed in their thousands for the markets of New 
York, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chi- 
cago, San Francisco, and other large cities in the United 
States, were: Cape Cod; Great South Bay, New York; Cur- 
rituck Sound, North Carolina; Marsh Island, Louisiana; 
the Sunk Lands of Arkansas; the Lake regions of Minnesota; 
the prairie regions of the Middle West; the Great Salt Lake; 
the Klamath Lake region in Oregon; and in southern Cali- 
fornia. To-day the number of wild fowl to be found in 
these places is but a small proportion of the former thou- 
