INTRODUCTION 
The astonishingly rapid increase of population in 
the United States has resulted in an equally startling 
decrease in America’s larger fauna, especially in those 
mammals, birds and fishes which are useful for food. 
The story of the extermination of large animals over 
vast areas is familiar to all, and men not yet beyond 
middle life have themselves seen the extermination of 
food birds over much of the country east of the Mis- 
sissipp1 and north of the Ohio River. Even young 
men can remember when the prairie chickens abounded 
in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, in regions where 
now there are but few. 
As the game became more scarce the importance of 
preserving it began gradually to be appreciated. Yet 
in a thickly settled region it is very difficult to effi- 
ciently protect the game. Obviously, the best way to 
accomplish this is to interest the general public in it, 
to point out the economic value of the game birds, 
and to secure for the authorities, whose work it is to 
enforce the laws, the backing of public opinion in be- 
half of those laws. 
XVii 
