GAME REFUGES. 35 



The buffalo is not mentioned, because the buffalo was completely ex- 

 terminated, long ago. Nothing remains to hunt in the State of 

 Colorado except the mere dregs and remnants of bird life and small 

 mammtls. 



Gentlemen, the State of Colorado is not a solitary exception. I 

 wish to Heaven it were. Conditions are all too nearly the same 

 throughout the other States of the West, on the other side of the 

 Great Plains. Down in the State of New Mexico the New Mexico 

 State Game Protective Association, which contains a total member- 

 ship of about 1,000 wide-awake men, in nine different local organiza- 

 tions, has declared in its formal proceedings that if this Hayden bill 

 does not become a law they believe it will be necessary to stop all 

 deer hunting in the State of New Mexico in order to save the species 

 from extermination. In the Carson National Forests of New Mexico, 

 where there are a million acres of land available for deer, the hunters 

 found last year, in the season for deer hunting, exactly eight deer that 

 they could kill according to law. They ought to have found 2,000 

 in that area. 



Up in the State of Washington the same conditions prevail. If 

 ever there was a body of men that ever became thoroughly aroused on 

 a subject like this, it is the game wardens, the game commissioners, 

 and leading sportsmen of the State of Washington, especially center- 

 ing at Spokane. They have sent to their Senators and Representa- 

 tives in Congress some very strong, and even stern, recommendations 

 in regard to this matter, demanding in unequivocal terms the passage 

 of the Chamberlain-Hay den bill as a means of saving their remnants 

 of big game and of restocking their forests. 



The Chairman. What is your view of conditions in my State, 

 Arkansas ? 



Dr. Hornaday. The State of Arkansas needs several game sanc- 

 tuaries, and needs them very much indeed. If this bill becomes a 

 law I strongly urge the making of three sanctuaries in the Arkansas 

 National Forest and three in the Ozark National Forest, no matter 

 how small some of them may be. In addition to that, I think that 

 the State owes it to the Nation to make a State game sanctuary 

 in the great feeding grounds and nesting grounds for ducks known as 

 the Sunk Lands, in the northeastern corner of the State. 



It is high time for Arkansas to be thinking seriously about per- 

 petuating her game for the benefit of her people — to-day, to-morrow, 

 and a hundred years hence. 



The wild-life laws of Arkansas, like those of every other State in the 

 Union, always have been too liberal to the hunters of game and too 

 hard upon the game. They have borne especially hard upon the 

 waterfowl. About four years ago — possibly it was five — a well- 

 organized and very determined effort, headed by Mr. E. A. Mcllhenny, 

 of Louisiana, was made to correct the whole situation and properly 

 conserve the game of the State. A new code of game laws was 

 drafted and put before the legislature. Good men and good news- 

 papers in Arkansas strongly urged its enactment into statute law. 

 But, as so often has happened m other States, the majority in the 

 legislature was heedless and indifferent, and the whole campaign 

 ended in a dismal and disappointing failure. A great opportunity 

 was lost. 



