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animal, the destruction of which will put much money into 
some one’s pocket, is doomed to the same kind of persecu- 
tion as was the game before it was protected by law. The 
result of this persecution is patent to all; and if a heavy 
uniform bounty on any one animal could be paid throughout 
the continent, it would be, in time, either exterminated or 
rendered so rare that hunting it would be unprofitable. Ad- 
mitting that such bounty laws, if uniformly adopted, would 
be effective, let us first consider why their results are, in 
general, pernicious. 
The main object of all bird legislation is to protect the 
birds. This can he done by restricting both the number of 
shooters and the time during which shooting is allowed. 
Bounty laws have precisely the opposite effect. They en- 
courage boys, foreigners and unemployed persons to roam 
with guns in their hands through the woods and fields at all 
seasons of the year. This is sure to result in the destruc- 
tion of game birds and insectivorous birds at all seasons, to 
say nothing of the poultry and other property of the farm- 
ers that, perforce, must suffer. Probably every State that 
has offered bounties in recent years has had this experience. 
Bounty laws always put a premium upon dishonesty. 
Under the so-called scalp act of 1885, in Pennsylvania, up- 
wards of two thousand dollars 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 mammals. 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 sixty-one dollars. 
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 were thus fraudulently obtained. 1 This but repeats 
the history of local and State bounty laws everywhere. 
1 “Birds of Massachusetts,” Dr. B. H. Warren, annual report Massachusetts State 
Board of Agriculture, 1890, p. 45. 
