chickens, grouse, ducks, geese, upland plover, snipe, woodcock, quail, and 
other food species were annually sent to market bir gunners who, except for 
a few months in midsummer, shot and snared game the whole year round. It was 
during this time that the passenger pigeon was exterminated and certain other 
game specics were so badly reduced that they have never since recovered. 
Strange to say, market shooting seems to have enriched no one en 
gaged 
in it. Today a pair of canvasback Gucks taken from the Susquehanna Flats 
and illicitly offered for sale will bring the poacher from $3 to $5 if he 
can concluce the transaction without being caught by Federal or State 
ee S 
law-enforcement: officers, in which case the offender may have to pay a $500 
*) oi Ls 
fine and spend 6 months in jail, Much of the game earlier taken for the 
then legitimate market spoiled on its way, and what was sound and saleable 
brought’ prices so low that the receipts often were not sufficient to pay 
the gunner’s expenses, Ducks, geese, and other game birds sold for a few 
cents a pair, and the business was so badly orgenized and conpetition s 
sharp that the markets were nearly elweys glutted. The written accounts of 
Bogardus and other market shooters afford sone indication of the extent of 
the slaughter. They also refer to the uncertainty of profit and describe 
nerket shooting generally as a hard, leborious, and often hazardous enter- 
= > , 9 
prise, Yet it was continzed until sportsmen and conservationists at the 
beginning of the present century beenane alarmed at the destruction and scught 
legislation to prohibit treffic in game. 
a 
= 
4 
ral 
The Aaerican bison, or buffalo, as the animal is more generally called, 
achieved military significance in the history of the country. It has been 
estimated that there were not fewer than 75,000,000 of these animals making 
up the vast herds that roamed the continent at the time the white man was 
establishing the first colonies. Buffalo were not, as many now suppose, a 
purely western species. At that time their range extendcod clear to the At- 
lantic seaboard, as did that of the elk, The hide hunters brought the buf- 
falo to the very verge of extinction, and though it scems strange to us 
today, they had the full consent and approval of the United States Govern- 
ment to encourage them in the slaughter. The buffalo was the Plains Indians’ 
base of supply, and the existence of vast herds on the hunting grounds 
made the subjugation of the hostile tribes difficult if not impossible 
of accomplishment by the armed ferees cf the Unitec States. It was clear to 
the strategists in Washineton that there could be no peace with the Indian 
and no complete conquest of the rich western lands until the buffalo had 
been destroyed, for these roving herds were supplying the Indian with nearly 
everything he needed in the way of food, shelter, and equipment. 
The Government accomplished its purposes by aiding the buffalo hunt- 
ers With free ammunition end supplies and by giving them nilitary protec- 
tion whenever possible, When the Sharps "buffalo gun" and the skinning 
knife had finished their work the Indians had been driven into the reser- 
vations, and the buffalo--the few hundreds of them remaining-——were gathered 
into preserves, most of which are now maintained by the same Government 
that a few years previously had so grimly sought annihilation of the aninals. 
There they will remain unless in the unpredictable vicissitudes of tine, 
areas of their hereditary range are agein restored to them and to tho elk, 
deer, and antelope. 
