196 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



ably certain that during the past forty years "the Chicago mar- 

 ket" has been the direct cause of more hoggish and wasteful 

 game-slaughter throughout the Middle West than any other four 

 cities in the United States. Had that market been closed thirty 

 years ago, there would now be thousands of game birds in the 

 Middle West where today there are only dozens. The hunting 

 was done systematically, by experienced men, freely using the 

 telegraph to locate birds, and sweeping over the country like 

 a pestilence. Now the Chicago market may well be closed, — 

 when there is mighty little more game-bird life left to feed 

 it. 



June 10. — In Ottawa the Privy Council of the Canadian Government 

 by a lengthy formal resolution approved both the letter and 

 the spirit of the treaty proposed by the U. S. Government for 

 the international protection of migratory birds, and ordered 

 that the same be forwarded directly to the British Ambassador 

 at Washington for ratification. 



June 10. — Conference on the elk problem of the Yellowstone Park 

 region held in New York by invitation of the Forest Service and 

 the Biological Survey. 



June 14. — The State of Florida stepped backward (Chapter 6,9 69) 

 by abolishing the office of state game commissioner, and fool- 

 ishly declaring the title to the game of the state to be vested 

 in the various counties. Why not townships, or school dis- 

 tricts? This crazy law puts a premium upon neighborly judges 

 and juries, and extermination. Any state that can pass such a 

 wicked and foolish law deserves to be as barren of wild life 

 as the Sahara Desert. 



June 15. — The Canadian Government forwarded the draft of the 

 treaty for the international protection of migratory birds to Sir 

 Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice, for ratification. 



June 16. — Lake Minnetonka Game Refuge was established in Min- 

 nesota, near Minneapolis, embracing Lake Minnetonka and its 

 environs, to the extent of 64,0 00 acres. The lake is quite sur- 

 rounded by summer homes. This really great sanctuary was 

 created chiefly through the efforts of the Minnesota Game and 

 Fish Protective League, and particularly its President, Clinton 

 M. Odell, Vice-president Charles D. Velie and Field Superin- 

 tendent Frank D. Blair. For this campaign, and the first pay 

 of a game warden, the League raised and expended over 

 $5,000. 



July 4. — Mr. Samuel Thorne, a Founder of this Fund, died at the 

 age of eighty years. During the last ten years of his life Mr. 

 Thorne was keenly interested in wild life protection, and was 

 a liberal supporter of that cause. In critical periods he never 

 failed to give substantial aid. 



July 12. — Holland takes a step of far-reaching importance for the 

 preservation of the birds of the East Indies. The exportation 

 of all wild birds' plumage and skins, save three species, is pro- 

 hibited everywhere throughout the Dutch East Indies, — a vast 

 tropical archipelago 3,0 00 miles long by 1,100 miles wide at the 



