GAME AS A NATIONAL RESOURCE. 7 



portant than its value is the fact that a nutritious and relatively 

 cheap meat is thus distributed and made available to a considerable 

 number of persons who can ill afford to pay high prices for beef, 

 mutton, and pork. 



GAME BIRDS. 



QUAIL. 



Every State has some species of quail, either native or introduced. 

 J'robably no game except ducks is more generally hunted, particularly 

 the eastern species commonly known as bob-white. Quail protection 

 lias passed through several stages. Formerly abundant in most 

 States, the birds were first hunted for food by pioneers and early 

 settlers; later, commercialized, they were hunted and trapped for 

 market in such enormous numbers that now they have become so 

 reduced that their sale is prohibited almost everywhere. Even the 

 privilege of hunting them for sport has been withdrawn in a number 

 of States. In 1920 there was no quail shooting in 15 States — Colo- 

 rado, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, NeAv 

 ^'ork (except Long Island), North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South 

 Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming — because of the scarcity of 

 the birds or the closing of the season. The only States in the north- 

 ern tier which had an open season were New Hampshire, Vermont, 

 Minnesota, Idaho, and Washington, but even in these States the 

 birds were by no means abundant. 



On account of existing restrictions as to sale, it is difficult to ascer- 

 tain the market value of quail, but prices advanced considerably 

 during the last century. In 1810, Audubon ' records that quail sold 

 for 12 cents a dozen, and by 1830 the price had increased to 50 cents 

 a dozen. In the season of 1917, two years before Congress prohibited 

 their sale entirely in the District of Columbia, they retailed in the 

 markets of Washington, D. C, at $9 a dozen. Enormous numbers 

 of quail were formerly sold in some of the larger cities, notably San 

 Francisco, where in 1891 it was reported that about 100,000 were sold 

 each year in the market. * This was about 10 years before the sale 

 of quail was prohibited in California. The sale of native quail is 

 now prohibited throughout the United States except in a few counties 

 of North Carolina. 



WATEEFOAVL. 



Enormous numbers of waterfowl are killed in the United States 

 every year during autumn and winter. Formerly they were sold in 

 large quantities in certain markets, notably Boston, New York, Phila- 



'Ornith. Biog., vol. 1, p. 392, 1831. 



* Judd, S. D. (quoting C. P. Streator), The bobwhite and other quail of the United 

 States in their economic relations : Bull. 21, Biol. Survey, U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 48, 1905. 



