24 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



has been wholly prohibited — would not only have reduced 

 the numbers of wild fowl as a whole to seriously small pro- 

 portions, but would undoubtedly have led to the extermina- 

 tion of certain species. Fall shooting is perfectly legitimate 

 so long as the number that may be killed is limited by law, 

 as it involves only the destruction of a portion of the annual 

 increase; that is, it is using the interest on the capital stock 

 of birds. But spring shooting implies the destruction of 

 the breeding stock, that is, of the capital. The supporters 

 of spring shooting either refused or failed to realize that, 

 even though the birds, during migration, are not actually 

 breeding, they are generally mated. Many species of ducks 

 mate as early as February, and the killing of such birds in- 

 volved the reduction of the number of birds required to 

 maintain an increase sufficient to provide legitimate shoot- 

 ing in the fall without effecting a reduction in the total 

 number. 



But of all factors responsible for the enormous reduction 

 in the numbers of our wild fowl the market gunner was one 

 of the most serious. Absolutely devoid of any desire to 

 conserve birds, and inbred with the sole desire to kill as 

 many birds as possible, and in the shortest time, the market 

 gunner was only limited by the physical impossibility of 

 killing more than a certain number of birds per day. The 

 great slaughtering-grounds on which our Canadian-bred 

 birds were killed in their thousands for the markets of New 

 York, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chi- 

 cago, San Francisco, and other large cities in the United 

 States, were: Cape Cod; Great South Bay, New York; Cur- 

 rituck Sound, North Carolina; Marsh Island, Louisiana; 

 the Sunk Lands of Arkansas; the Lake regions of Minnesota; 

 the prairie regions of the Middle West; the Great Salt Lake; 

 the Klamath Lake region in Oregon; and in southern Cali- 

 fornia. To-day the number of wild fowl to be found in 

 these places is but a small proportion of the former thou- 



