54 



a large share of the money paid out by the State goes to com- 

 paratively few people and is collected largely through fraud and 

 deceit. In my "Decrease of Birds" this is alluded to in the 

 following words: — 



Bounty laws always put a premium upon dishonesty. Under the so- 

 called scalp act of 1885, in Pennsylvania, upwards of $2,000 were realized 

 for a buffalo hide and a mule skin in one county by a party of hunters. 

 These hides were cut up and "fixed" to resemble the scalps or ears of 

 predatory animals. Whether the magistrates also were "fixed" is not 

 recorded. A red fox was slain in one of the mountainous districts and its 

 pelt cut into sixty-one parts, for which the hunter received $61. Bounties 

 were paid on the heads of domestic fowls, grouse, cuckoos, and even 

 English sparrows, which were supposed to have been palmed off on the 

 authorities as the heads of hawks and owls. Birds and mammals were 

 killed in other States and shipped into Pennsylvania, and large amounts 

 of money thus were fraudulently obtained. 1 



This but repeats the history of local and State bounty laws 

 everywhere. 



In Massachusetts we had for years a law which provided for 

 the payment of a bounty of $5 each for seal's tails. Some of 

 the Passamaquoddy Indians shot a few seals in Maine and 

 manufactured from their skins imitation seal's tails enough to 

 take from the different towns in Massachusetts some $2,500 in 

 bounties. That resulted in the repeal of the bounty law. 



Dr. George W. Field, former chairman of the Massachusetts 

 State Commission on Fisheries and Game, asserts that he re- 

 calls one instance where one town paid $1,800 in bounties 

 fraudulently obtained, and another where nearly a bushel of 

 crow's heads was used in collecting bounties repeatedly in a 

 Massachusetts town. In Pennsylvania a single owl furnished 

 three heads on which premiums were paid. When bounties 

 on the same species have been offered in adjacent States pre- 

 miums have been collected in both States on the same identical 

 trophies. 



The heads or other remains of the following mammals and 

 birds are given by Dr. Warren as having been presented in 

 different counties of Pennsylvania where bounties were paid on 



1 See Warren, B. H.: Birds of Massachusetts, annual report, Mass. State Board of Agr., 1890, 

 p. 45. 



