CONSERVATION OF GAME BIRDS. 515 



he has seen five thousand Mallards and Black Ducks brought 

 into Georgetown, S. C, for shipment to the north in one day. 

 He states that one firm in Georgetown has marketed two 

 hundred and forty thousand Rails and that seven hundred 

 and twenty thousand Bobolinks have been shipped in one 

 season. Probably millions of Robins have been sold in southern 

 markets. 



Notwithstanding the many restrictions on the marketing 

 of native wild game, enormous quantities of game birds have 

 been sold, and the laws protecting them have been violated by 

 unscrupulous dealers. In 1903, forty -two thousand seven 

 hundred and fifty-nine birds were found illegally in the posses- 

 sion of a cold-storage house in New York City, thirty-four 

 thousand four hundred and thirteen of which were game birds, 

 eighteen thousand and fifty-eight were Snow Buntings and 

 two hundred and eighty-eight were Bobolinks. 



The markets of the large cities draw their supplies from 

 many parts of the country and from foreign lands. Game birds 

 from European countries, from Siberia, Manchuria and the 

 West Indies are now sold in our markets. Many species of 

 Pheasant are now extinct or approaching extinction in their 

 native lands. Game first becomes scarce near the large mar- 

 ket centers and then at greater and greater distances from 

 them, as the demand increases and extends. 



The modern demand for game is unlimited. Formerly the 

 market was sometimes glutted and the demand ceased. Now 

 facilities for cold storage make it possible for the marketmen 

 to preserve great quantities of game indefinitely. A firm in 

 Boston has been holding about four hundred Upland Plover in 

 cold storage for five years, during which time it has been illegal 

 to sell them in Massachusetts. When the law forbidding the 

 sale of all but foreign game and certain species raised on pre- 

 serves went into effect in New York City, September, 1911, 

 there were still one hundred and seventy-five thousand game 

 birds in cold storage in New York City, mostly left over from 

 the preceding year. August Silz, a large game dealer of that 

 city, asserts, according to Dr. W. T. Hornaday, that he has 

 sold a million game birds in one year. The markets of Chicago, 



