57^ DUCK SHOOTING. 



secretary of the association for Oregon. Among other 

 things, Mr. Storey said : "Another work that has been 

 pushed by your secretary for this State, and in which I 

 am now prepared to ask your hearty cooperation, is the 

 protection from egg-hunters of our wildfowl breeding 

 grounds in Alaska. A careful investigation shows that 

 millions of eggs are gathered and shipped from these 

 grounds annually, and countless numbers of partly ma- 

 tured eggs destroyed. I have furnished our United 

 States Senator, the Hon. Jno. H. Mitchell, with the 

 proper information relating to tiie above facts, and if 

 the State secretaries of this association will bring the 

 matter before their several Senators at Washington, 

 asking them to cooperate with Senator Mitchell, I am 

 sure the effect will be for the best." 



It was obvious that if anything approaching the 

 quantity of eggs mentioned were shipped each season 

 from railroad points on the North Pacific coast, some 

 one would know about it. There would be a great 

 coastwise traffic in these eggs; trains of merchandise 

 are not loaded up at night and shipped off secretly to 

 unknown consignees, nor are shiploads of eggs re- 

 ceived from foreign countries without entry at the Cus- 

 tom House. A man does not start from the shores of 

 the Arctic seas with an tgg in his pocket, come down 

 a thousand miles or so to the border line, smuggle the 

 tgg across, and then go back for another. Yet a care- 

 ful inquiry among the persons who professed to know 

 most about this subject, and who were most eager to 

 be quoted on it, elicited no information whatever. 



