162 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



to birds — the " market hunter," the man whose 

 wholesale slaughter of our wild creatures is a 

 disgrace to the country. Legitimate shootmg by 

 honest sportsmen will never do much harm ; we 

 might even say that the sportsman is the best 

 friend the bird has, for to him is due the passing of 

 sensible laws which reaUy protect birds. Then, too, 

 the sportsman sometimes replenishes the stock of 

 birds, or at least takes pains to protect them during 

 the breeding time, while the market hunter simply 

 destroys. 



Down in Currituck nothing is thought of a 

 single boat bringing in over a hundred ducks of 

 one species as a result of a day's injurious work — 

 work made stiU more injurious and deadly since 

 the introduction of the unsportsmanlike slaughter 

 machine, the " pump " gun. If this ghastly 

 business is to be allowed it wiU be but a very short 

 time before our game birds wiU exist only as a 

 memory. The one way to protect with any degree 

 of success is to prohibit absolutely all sale of native 

 wild creatures, birds as well as animals. 



Unfortunately, there is not space here to go into 

 this subject, scarcely even to touch upon it, but we 

 cannot help wondering what would become of the 

 noble swan should public taste ever demand it as 

 an article of food. How long before it would be 

 driven from our coast to join the ranks of the 

 departed buffalo ? If only the people would throw 

 off the cloak of apathy and force their representa- 

 tives to pay heed to the warnings of the few (too 

 few, alas !) men and women who have given thought 

 to the subject of bird preservation, so that decent 



