Vol i909 :YI ] Correspondence. 451 



of birds could, through the remotest sort of an operation, be employed as 

 a means whereby the various methods in vogue to protect our game birds 

 would, thanks to such a knowledge, have added to them another process, 

 the application of which tends not only to aid in such protection, but 

 at the same time place the offenders in a position where they may be 

 readily apprehended and be made to suffer the penalties of the laws on 

 the subject. During the times of publication of my various memoirs 

 upon the osteology of game birds in general no such possible use of the 

 facts and information therein set forth ever entered my mind for an in- 

 stant, and, indeed, it was not until a few years ago when, through a 

 practical demonstration of it, the value of the practice, here to be briefly 

 described, became apparent to me. There is one point which will not be 

 necessary to touch upon here, for every game bird protectionist is more or 

 less familiar with the nature of the heavy fines the law imposes upon all 

 hotel and restaurant keepers for serving to their patrons such birds out of 

 season, or even having them at such times in their possession. In fact the 

 law applies to any one so offending. Well and good, the law is one thing, 

 while to detect, apprehend and punish such offenders is quite another thing, 

 and usually a feat of unusual difficulty in its accomplishment. The Forest, 

 Fish and Game Commission of New York had found it so for years. No 

 method had ever occurred to them by means of which apprehension and 

 punishment of the culprits could be made certain. The great hotels 

 and wealthy restaurants smiled and all over the city violated the law 

 every day with impunity, and numerous markets supplied the demand, and 

 wild turkeys, grouse, quail, woodcock, snipe and the rest were being sold 

 to them quite regardless of the law. Detectives, both men and women, — 

 the best known in the State, — are employed with the view of detecting the 

 law's violators. They resort to the aforesaid hotels and restaurants, even 

 late at night in evening dress, and, out of season, order such birds to be 

 served to them. The sometimes unsuspecting hosts and their waiters, 

 after certain, what they considered to be, the necessary precautionary 

 preliminaries, serve " the real thing." But these detectives are not ornithol- 

 ogists, much less avian ornithotomists, and therefore are subject to being 

 only too often readily deceived, and thus get the Commission into trouble 

 through making false charges. Later on it occurs to them, when not ob- 

 served by the waiters at the tables they occupy, to slip the bones of the 

 birds served to them into convenient pockets. At the offices of the 

 Commission these bones are carefully preserved in separate boxes, with 

 numbers and dates upon them, with other required data. Except some- 

 times in the case of woodcock, the heads and feet are never secured, while 

 sterna, pelves, ribs and other bones are commonly so obtained. But 

 what to do with this material, that's the question. Everything renders 

 the solution pressing and therefore at last the suggestion materializes. 

 Send for a 'bone-sharp.' The worthy President of the National Associa- 

 tion of the Audubon Societies recommends one, and, without an idea of 

 what is required of him this expert in due course finds himself alone with the 



