Page 91 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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GUERRILLAS OF DESTRUCTION 69
Shortly after that seizure American quail became so scarce that in effecttheytotallydisappearedfromthebanquettablesofNewYork. I can not recall having been served with one since 1903, but the little Egyp- tian quail can be legally imported and sold when officially tagged.
Few persons away from the firing line realize the far-reaching effects ofthesaleofwildgame. Hereareafewflashesfromthesearchlight
At Hangkow, China, Mr. C. William Beebe found that during his visit in 1911, over 46,000 pheasants of various species were shipped from thatportononecold-storagesteamertotheLondonmarket. Andthis when English pheasants were selling in the Covent Garden market at from two to three shillings each, for fresh birds
In 1910, 1,200 ptarmigan from Norway, bound for the Chicago mar- ket, passed through the port of New York,—not by any means the first orthelastshipmentofthekind. TheepicuresofChicagoarebeingper- mitted to comb the game out of Norway.
In 1910, 70,000 dozen Egyptian quail were shipped to Europe from Alexandria,Egypt. Justwhythatspecieshasnotalreadybeenextermi- nated, is a zoological mystery ; but extermination surely will come some day, and I think it will be in the near future.
The coast of China has been raked and scraped for wild ducks to ship toNewYork,—prior,tothepassageoftheBaynelaw! Ihaveforgotten the figures that once were given me, but they were an astonishing num- ber of thousands for the year.
The Division of Negroes and Poor Whites who kill song and other birds indiscriminately will be found in a separate chapter.
The Division of "Resident" Game-Butchers.—This refers to the men who live in the haunts of big game, where wardens are the most of the time totally absent, and where bucks, does and fawns of hoofed big gamemaybekilledinseasonandoutofseason,withimpunity. Itin- cludes guides, ranchmen, sheep-herders, cowboys, miners, lumbermen and floaters generally. In times past, certain taxidermists of Montana promoted the slaughter of wild bison in the Yellowstone Park, and it was a pair of rascally taxidermists who killed, or caused to be killed in Lost Park, in 1897, the very last bison of Colorado.
It seems to be natural for the minds of men who live in America in the haunts of big game to drift into the idea that the wild game around them is all theirs. Very few of them recognize the fact that every other man, woman and child in a given state or province has vested rights in itswildgame. Itisnaturalforafrontiersmantofeelthatbecauseheis in the wilds he has a God-given right to li-ve off the country ; but to-day thatideaistotallywrong! Ifsomewaycannotbefoundtocurbthatall- pervading propensity among our frontiersmen, then we may as well bid all our open-field big game a long farewell; for the deadly "residents" surely will exterminate it, outside the game preserves. The "residents" are, in my opinion, about ten times more destructive than the sportsmen. A sportsman in quest of large game is in the field only from ten to thirty