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WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 
In 1884 the buffalo hunters of the northern plains be¬ 
lieved, and said, that there would “always be plenty of 
buffalo.” In the winter of 1885 they went out as usual, 
to hunt for hides. But there ivere no buffalo! 
Presently they said : “They have gone north. They must 
and will come back. We will wait for them.” 
For months they loafed around their camp-fires, and 
waited. But the herds never came back. They had been 
exterminated —so suddenly and so completely that even the 
hide-hunters themselves did not realize it, and would not 
believe it until two years had elapsed! 
The passenger pigeon millions went the same way, by 
commercial slaughter, so quickly that no one realized ivhat 
was happening until it was all over! For ten years the 
American people refused to believe that all those millions 
of birds had gone forever; but now they know that it is true. 
The heath hen, or eastern prairie chicken, formerly of 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and 
Massachusetts, went not quite so rapidly, but it went just 
the same. The 5 and 10-year close seasons which were giv¬ 
en it came so tardily that they were too late! The decimated 
birds could not recuperate. About fifty years ago that spe¬ 
cies became totally extinct, everywhere save on the island 
of Martha’s Vineyard, where Dr. George W. Field and the 
Massachusetts State Game Commission by dint of fostering 
care saved it from final annihilation. 
Let every western hunter of sage grouse, sharp-tail and 
pinnated grouse remember the fate of the heath hen, and 
take to heart the moral of that tragic story. If it is a crime 
(grand larceny) to steal $21, what shall we say of those 
who rob a state or a nation of a valuable bird or mammal 
species which no human power ever can replace? 
THE CRITICAL HOUR. 
One year ago we made in person, throughout the sage 
grouse states, a special demand for the saving of the “Cock- 
of-the-Plains”; and this is the last call. 
