VALUABLE WILD LIFE 19 



the forces that now protect wild life were with- 

 drawn from the field, and the destroyers were per- 

 mitted to go their way unchecked, in ten years' 

 time the whole United States would be as barren of 

 valuable and desirable wild life as is Italy to-day. 

 Imagine the carnival of slaughter that would ensue ! 



Although the remnant of game birds and quad- 

 rupeds now alive in the United States represents 

 only about 2 per cent of the stock that existed here 

 only fifty years ago, that remnant is sufficient to 

 cause the sale each year, in this country, of nearly 

 half a million shot-guns, and about 500,000,000 

 cartridges. We are not taking into this account the 

 additional 400,000,000 cartridges that are used 

 annually in trap-shooting. 



The army of destruction that annually takes the 

 field against wild life, openly and according to law, 

 contains at least 2,642,194 men and boys. Through 

 a little investigation we found in 1911 that twenty- 

 seven of our states issued hunting licenses, and that 

 the total number actually issued for that year was 

 1,486,228, or an average of 55,046 for each state. 1 



The twenty-one states not issuing hunting 

 licenses, or not reporting, undoubtedly sent as 

 many hunters per capita into the field in 1911 as 

 did the other states. Computed fairly on existing 

 averages, those twenty-one states were undoubtedly 



i In 1912, when Pennsylvania enacted a license law covering the 

 hunting privilege, it was estimated that 200,000 hunting licenses 

 would be issued each year. In 1913 the actual number proved to be 

 nearly 300,000! 



