298 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 
Mi. Merriam. In carrying out the requirements of the game law 
for Alaska we have difficulties because we have no money to be used 
for that purpose, no wardens, and we are obliged to give permits. A 
number of foreigners come over here each year to hunt big game in 
Alaska, because big game is so accessible there and so easily killed. 
A number of sportsmen go from the United States; and the men who 
are out there, the natives, and people who are there temporarily—it is 
hard to speak of most of them as inhabitants, as very few are real- 
inhabitants, but men who are there from one to two or three years as 
miners—want to kill what game they need for their own use; and the 
enforcement of this law. even in a limited way—in a specified way—is 
avery difficult matter; and there is a great deal of local feeling against 
letting sportsmen from the United States and from abroad go there 
and kill game. 
Mr. Scorr. You will know in a few weeks how much the fence will 
cost? 
Mr. Merriam. Yes; but we have made preliminary estimates, and 
we do not think we can put up that fence for less than $2,000. That 
is the real difficulty. We have not money enough to buy the fencing 
and put up the posts. It is expensive to put up the posts, even when 
we are allowed to cut them on Government land. 
The Cuarrman. Go on, Doctor, in your own way. 
Mr. Mrretam. That is all with respect to this; and this, of course, 
is no part of the regular work of the Biological Survey. It is some- 
thing put on top of us that we have had to try to look out for. 
In the work in economic ornithology we are carrying on investiga- 
tions of food habits of birds with respect to their value to the people 
and publishing the results in little special bulletins—as in our bulletins, 
with which you are familiar—on the hawks, and owls, and blackbirds, 
woodpeckers, and so on. We take up a crop at atime and point out 
what species are of value to the farm or to the forest and what species 
are injurious. And this is work that is of immediate practical inter- 
est to all agriculturists and all interested in forestry, and can not be 
done any too early, because in certain areas birds of enormous impor- 
tance have been destroyed, just as many important mammals have been 
destroyed. Big epidemics of injurious insects would not have occurred 
in many cases if it had not been for the destruction of their natural 
enemies. 
The destruction of the large hawks and owls, the coyotes and rattle- 
snakes, has enabled the prairie dogs to increase disproportionately and 
inordinately and to spread over a much larger area than it originally 
inhabited, and become much more abundant on parts of that area than 
formerly. We take up questions that seem particularly important 
wherever they arise, and send men into the field. We also cooperate 
with the States in helping them to enforce the game laws under the 
Lacey Act, in preventing interstate traffic in game. We found the 
largest source of supply of cage birds in the United States was in 
Louisiana, and by enforcing the Lacey Act, preventing interstate 
trattic, we have checked that traffic immensely. In Kansas the quail 
was trapped for propagating purposes in immense numbers, until they 
were nearly exterminated in southern Kansas, and by cooperating 
with local authorities we have largely stopped them; and Kansas has 
passed very stringent laws in some of its counties. About twenty of 
