SOITECES OF INFOBMATIOK. 11 



that the abundance of game has caused less attention to be paid to 

 legislation regarding hunting seasons and methods of hunting, while 

 numerous restrictions have been placed on shipment, sale, and market 

 hunting, particularly by nonresidents. 



These drastic laws were not permitted to stand unchallenged. The 

 nonresident hcense law of 1875 was set aside by the circuit courts of 

 Craighead and Poinsett Counties in 1887,^ and in 1904 the act passed 

 the prcArious year prohibiting nonresidents from hunting in the State 

 was carried to the supreme court of Arkansas, and this court held the 

 statute unconstitutional in so far as it prevented property owners 

 from hunting on their own land.^ The nonexport law enacted in 1893 

 authorized express companies to examine packages suspected of 

 containing game and held them responsible for the transmission of 

 such shipments out of the State. This broad power of examining 

 shipments with the accompanying responsibihty was apparently not 

 rehshed by the carriers, and a few years ago became the basis of a test 

 case carried to the supreme court. The court sustained the law and 

 held the express companies Hable for game shipments intrusted to 

 their care.^ 



Restrictions on the shipment of game and on hunting by nonresi- 

 dents have aroused most opposition in the northeast. section of the 

 State, particularly in the Sunken Lands, where enormous numbers of 

 waterfowl attract not only market hunters but sportsmen from other 

 States. Several wealthy clubs have acquired property at favorable 

 points in the region and have erected expensive club houses on their 

 grounds. In the attempt to reap the greatest amount of benefit from 

 the enormous numbers of birds which annually visit this section, there 

 has been a constant effort on the part of club members and market 

 hunters to secure legislation favorable to their interests. This has 

 resulted in bringing about conditions far from satisfactory, and has 

 left the game without that measure of protection which is considered 

 essential in other States. 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 



Audubon was probably the first naturalist to visit the State. 

 He passed through Arkansas at various times between the years 1811 

 and 1819, but no account of his expeditions has been preserved, and 

 the published results consist only of scattered records in his "Birds 

 of America" and the description there of a new species of flycatcher 

 {Empidonax traiUi), which he procured on the prairies of the Arkansas 

 River. 



In 1819 Thomas Nuttall made a journey down the Mississippi to 

 the mouth of the Arkansas and up the Arkansas to Fort Smith, but 



1 American Field, XXXVn, p. 49. 1892; XXXVni, p. 3, 1892. 



2 State V. Mallory, 83 S. W. 955. 



a Wells Fargo Express Co. v. State, 96 S. W. 189. 



