232 What Birds Have Done With Me 



them and they protest against the general massa- 

 cre of the past. 



Close upon the heels of worry among sportsmen 

 over the disappearance of the wild pigeon and the 

 early extinction of the prairie chicken, comes pre- 

 diction of the end of the mallard duck. An East- 

 ern writer observes : 



"Formerly mallards existed in abundance, hard 

 to realize at the present time. Until after the war 

 (1861-1865) the ponds of middle South Carolina 

 supported millions of them each winter. The 

 noise of their flight sometimes deafened one. 

 They were killed by the wagonload. At Big Lake, 

 Arkansas, in the winter of 1893-1894, a single 

 pot hunter sold 8000 mallards, and 120,000 were 

 sent to market. In Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, 

 last winter 250,000 mallards were killed. Hun- 

 dreds of tons were killed at Lake Malheur, Ore- 

 gon, for their feathers. In Canada and along the 

 many lakes up to Hudson Bay, duck eggs were 

 sold by the million, their contents to be used in 

 glue factories and for the refining of sugar/' 



The Superior Telegram, deploring the ruthless 

 treatment of the mallard, contrasts him with the 

 wild pigeon to the latter's disadvantage. The 

 bird, it says, was a good riddance, though tooth- 

 some when young and fat. The farming industry 

 could not afford to maintain him, because he was 

 a vegetarian, and never harmed an insect. The 



