22 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



respite. His skill in shooting is fatal to the game, 

 and wherever market-hunting is permitted, its final 

 result is the extermination of the game in the 

 locality affected. 



During its breeding season the game is beset by 

 its natural enemies foxes, cats, hawks, owls, 

 wolves, lynxes and other predatory species; and to 

 this must be added the cold and starvation of extra- 

 severe winters. 



The bag limits, on which vast reliance has been 

 placed to preserve our game from extinction, are a 

 fraud, a delusion and a snare! The few local 

 exceptions only prove the generality of the rule. 

 In every state, without one single exception, the 

 bag limits are far too high, and the laws are of 

 deadly liberality. I think that in most states the 

 bag-limit laws on birds are an absolute dead letter. 

 Fancy ninety- five wardens in the state of New York 

 enforcing the bag-limit laws on 150,000 licensed 

 gunners ! In British East Africa, for a license cost- 

 ing $250, you receive a lawful right to kill three 

 hundred head of big game, representing forty- four 

 species, almost enough to load a ship. 



From 1885 to 1900, the agents of the millinery 

 trade wrought great destruction among the birds of 

 North America. In the beginning of the craze for 

 stuffed birds and wild birds' plumage on women's 

 hats, all kinds of bright-colored song-birds, terns, 

 gulls, herons, egrets, spoonbills, ibises and the 

 flamingo were used. The small birds were mounted 



