ECONOMIC VALUE OF OUR BIRDS 77 



remnants of pinnated grouse, sage-grouse and 

 sharp-tailed grouse, many men now in this audience 

 will live to see the day when all three of those fine 

 species will become totally extinct throughout this 

 country. Their extinguishment at this late day 

 through human greed and selfishness will be a 

 national disgrace, second to the disgrace of the 

 American bison only because the birds are of less 

 importance to the country at large. 



To the states that still possess remnant flocks of 

 pinnated grouse notably Minnesota, the Dakotas, 

 Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma we have ap- 

 pealed for a five-year close season; but thus far in 

 vain. The noble-minded, big-hearted "sports- 

 men" (!) of those states refuse to accede to the 

 demand, and the lawmakers, who care a hundred 

 times more about reelection than for state game, 

 are afraid to act against the wishes of the so-called 

 "leading organizations of sportsmen." 



In the first instance, the upland game-birds of 

 the Middle West were slaughtered, wholesale, by 

 market-hunters in the absence of law. Now they 

 are being slaughtered and exterminated by "sports- 

 men" gunners in accordance with law, because 

 the open seasons continue, and because there are 

 about ten guns and one hundred cartridges against 

 each surviving bird. The gunners and state law- 

 makers of the Middle West sullenly refuse to hear 

 and heed the lesson of the heath-hen or eastern 

 prairie-chicken, which reached a point so low that 



