Dec. 23, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
907 
would make the result obtained of doubtful 
value. 
“To most people the killing of several hun¬ 
dred birds appears an unjustifiable slaughter, but 
our best ornithologists tell us that in the economy 
of nature there is food and protection in each 
locality for a certain bird population, and that 
if this number is decreased by epidemic, lack of 
food, storm or other means, the number of 
young, which live as a result of the diminished 
numbers, soon brings back the balance of nature. 
An instance in point is the linnet, or house finch. 
This bird has been unprotected for a number of 
years, and the number of birds killed and the 
nests destroyed by fruit growers and small boys 
mounts into the thousands, and yet who will 
dare to say that this species has decreased in 
numbers? This does not mean that an indis¬ 
criminate slaughter of any species of bird would 
not have any effect on the numbers, for we have 
only to point to the game birds for instances, ot 
this. It does show, however, that the collection 
of non-game birds now being carried on is not 
so serious as might at first appear. 
“The collection of birds for evidence now 
being conducted by the commission has the ap¬ 
proval of the Audubon Society of the State and 
the agricultural departments at the State Uni¬ 
versity and Stanford, and is being conducted 
strictly on well considered and scientific lines. 
Every bird taken is carefully preserved, and the 
contents of its crop and intestines determined 
and tabulated. The birds taken will furnish 
evidence to establish whether they are friends 
or enemies of our great agricultural interests. 
If it be shown by the species taken that any 
one of the doubtful species of birds are friends, 
the loss of a number of specimens taken to 
establish the fact becomes of no importance to 
the species.” Golden Gate. 
Wild Life Refuges in Labrador. 
The constantly increasing public interest in the 
preservation of wild life is indicated by the fact 
that resolutions, addresses and discussions on 
this subject appear constantly in the public prints 
and form a part of the proceedings of the vari¬ 
ous conservation congresses which are being held 
so frequently at the present day. A notable ex¬ 
ample of this is found in an address delivered 
before the Commission of Conservation of Can¬ 
ada last January at Quebec and now issued in 
pamphlet form. 
In this address Col. William Wood discourses 
at length on animal sanctuaries in Labrador, and, 
if he advances no very new arguments, he at 
least puts forth the old arguments in a new dress 
and in a very telling fashion. His paper in fact 
is an urgent appeal to everyone to spread the 
gospel of wild life preservation, on which there 
is substantially unanimity of opinion, but too 
little activity by its advocates extending in an 
interest in it among the public at large. Very 
fittingly, therefore, Colonel Wood prepares his 
paper with the request that each reader do what 
he can to influence his or her home circle, that 
the press give the subject full publicity, and that 
experts point out mistakes or make suggestions. 
A sanctuary for wild life is a kind of wild 
zoological park on a gigantic scale and under 
ideal conditions. As such it appeals to everyone 
interested in animals, to zoologists and to tourists 
alike. There are plenty of examples on this con¬ 
tinent of successful sanctuaries. Canada has 
more than the United States, among them the 
Algonquin, Yoho, Glacier, Jaspar and Lauren- 
tides Park. In the United States there are the 
Yellowstone, the Glacier, the Yosemite, Grand 
Canon and a number of others. What such 
refuges do for those animals that are included 
within their boundaries and there protected is 
an oft told story. The abundance of elk in the 
Yellowstone Park, of sea lions in California, the 
revival of the ibex in Spain, the vast quantities 
of game in African preserves, have demonstrated 
all this. 
Why not set aside in unsettled Labrador a 
vast preserve for local and for migratory species? 
Labrador—distant and unknown to the general 
public—has for many years been exploited for 
advertising purposes as an unexplored territory, 
although for hundreds of years the Hudson's 
Bay and other white people have been running- 
over it in all directions. It has few inhabitants, 
for it is neither an agricultural nor a stock coun¬ 
try. It is a rocky tableland, high above the sea 
level, its northern portion in the latitude of 
Greenland and its southern in that of Paris. It 
comprises 560,000 square miles and so is as large 
as eleven Englands. It is a country with a great 
fauna of fur-bearing animals and of migratory 
birds. It is well known for its seals and its 
whales, though most of these of course are small 
species. It is a great country for fur and was 
formerly the home of vast herds of two sorts 
of reindeer, both of which are swiftly growing 
fewer. All along the coast the destruction of all 
life is constantly going on, and if the animals of 
the interior are a little safer, it is only because 
they are more inaccessible. 
It is worth while to quote some paragraphs to 
show what is going on at the present day. 
“Take ‘egging’ as an example. The Indians, 
Eskimo and other beasts of prey merely pre¬ 
serve the balance of nature by the toll they used 
to take. No beasts of prey, not even a white 
man, will destroy his own stock supply of food, 
but with the nineteenth century came the white 
man market ‘eggers,’ systematically taking or de¬ 
stroying every egg in every place they visited. 
Halifax, Quebec and other towns were centers 
of the trade. The ‘eggers’ increased in numbers 
and thoroughness till the eggs decreased in the 
more accessible spots below paying quantities. 
But other egging still goes on unchecked. The 
game laws of the Province of Quebec distinctly 
state ‘it is forbidden to take nests or eggs of 
wild birds at any time.’ But the swarms of fish¬ 
ermen who come up the north shore of the St. 
Lawrence egg wherever they go. If they are 
only to stay in the same spot for a day or two, 
they gather all the eggs they can, put them into 
water, and throw away everyone that floats. * * * 
Worse still, if the men are going to stay long 
enough, they will often go round the nests and 
make sure of smashing every single egg. Then, 
they come back in a few days and gather every 
single egg, because they know it has been laid in 
the meantime and must be fresh. When we re¬ 
member how many thousands of men visit the 
shore, and that the resident population eggs on 
its own account, at least as high up as the Pil¬ 
grims, only a hundred miles from Quebec, we 
need not be prophets to foresee the inevitable 
end of all bird life when subject to such a drain.” 
This is only on the St. Lawrence, where there 
are supposed to be laws and wardens, but the 
same thing goes on all along the coast where 
there are no laws, no wardens and a greater 
population to collect the eggs. It is as bad with 
the birds as with the eggs. “Not long ago the 
men from a vessel in Cross Harbor landed on 
an islet full of eiders and killed every single 
brooding mother. Such men have grown up to 
this, and there is that amount of excuse for them. 
Besides, they ate the birds, though they destroyed 
the broods. Yet, as they always say, ‘we don’t 
know no law here,’ it may be suspected that they 
do know there really is one. These men do a 
partly excusable wrong. But what about those 
who ought to know better? In the summer of 
1907 an American millionaire’s yacht landed a 
party who shot as many brooding birds on St. 
Mary Island as they chose, and then left the 
bodies to rot and the broods to perish. That 
was, presumably, for sport. For the same kind 
of sport, motor boats cut circles around diving 
birds, drown them, and let the bodies float away. 
The North Shore people have drowned myriads 
of moulting scooters in August, but they used 
the meat. Bestial forms of sport are many and 
vile. ‘C’est un plaisir superbe’ was the descrip¬ 
tion given by some voyageurs on exploring work 
who had spent the afternoon chasing young birds 
about the rocks and stamping them to death.” 
We have all of us fresh in our minds the im¬ 
portant birds that have become extinct recently 
or within a generation or two. The passenger 
pigeon and the Eskimo curlew are doubtfully 
existent, but about the Labrador duck and the 
great auk there is no question. Large game ani¬ 
mals and fur bearers are growing rapidly fewer 
in number. It seems not many years ago since 
it was common to see conductors and motor men 
wearing bear skin coats that cost them from $15 
to $25 and lasted them many years. Such coats 
nowadays would cost from $125 to $150. 
Colonel Wood urges the protection or partial 
protection of this great region, for the benefit of 
five great classes of people who are interested 
in the question from the points of view of food, 
business, the native population of Indians and 
Eskimo, sport, and the wild life lovers. 
Certain areas should be set aside for efficient 
protection, which areas will become reservoirs 
with a constant outflow of their life into the 
surrounding regions. The country is vast and 
most sparsely inhabited, but Canada has shown 
what her Northwest mounted police could do in 
the old days of the wild West and those more 
recent days of the wild North. There should 
be also international agreements for the protec¬ 
tion of all migratory animals, especially birds. 
The wild life refuges of Labrador should so far 
as possible be linked with the parks of Western 
Canada and with the refuges of the United States. 
Labrador offers tremendous opportunities for 
the great subject so ably set forth by the author 
of this interesting paper, and his preaching should 
not fall on deaf ears. The Canadian Govern¬ 
ment has always been far more farseeing in mat¬ 
ters of this kind than that of the United States. 
Witness the many parks and sanctuaries set aside 
under the Honorable Frank Oliver, Minister of 
the Interior, who also is responsible for the pur¬ 
chase and transportation to Canada of the Pablo 
herd of buffalo. 
We should be glad to see Colonel Wood’s ad¬ 
dress in the hands of every American sportsman 
and game protector in the land. He may be 
addressed at Quebec, Canada. 
