ation of $50,000 to pay the
bounty on the different animals. The appropriation was exhausted
almost before the trapping season had begun, or at least should have
begun, so far as the trapper's interest was concerned. Now, I wish to
speak of the bounty as to fox and mink, and I wish to speak of an
incident that came under my observation.

A neighbor of mine makes a business of trapping each fall; there were
three in the family, who trapped last fall. They caught 11 fox, 4
mink, 8 coon, 2 weasel and 1 wildcat. This catch was all made before
the 20th of October and sold for $34.45, or including bounty, $66.45.
Now, had this same fur been caught in November or December, the fur
alone would have brought at least $68.00, and the taxpayers would
have been $32.00 ahead.

I also know of another party who dug out two nests of young mink and
got nine young ones. The old mink escaped. I asked this man why he
did not let them go until fall or winter, as these dens were near his
mill? He informed me that he never fooled away any time trapping and
had he left them go until fall the mink would have been gone and now
he was $6.50 ahead. Now, this man had actually destroyed at least $30
worth of furs to get $6.50 in bounty.

While I think that the bounty on wildcats and weasel is all right, I
do not think a bounty on fox and mink at all necessary. The high
price their fur brings will induce the trapper to take all that the
bounty would induce him to do, and at a time when the fur will bring
more than a great deal of early caught furs would bring, including
the bounty.

It is quite doubtful as to mink being very destructive to birds or
their nests, and as to the destruction of poultry, it is a very easy
and inexpensive matter for any poultry raiser to arrange his poultry
house so as to take any prowling mink that should come about his
premises.

Now, I would suggest to the bird hunter, or as he prefers to be
called, "sportsman," that if he will leave his automatic gun and his
bird dog at home, and merely take a good double-barrel breechloader
and go into the bush, and "walk up" his birds, instead of having a
dog to show the bird to him, he will do far more to protect the game
bird than any bounty law will do! This the sportsman must do, or the
game birds of this state will soon be a thing of the past.

About 1870, there was a move begun to check the slaughter of the deer
in this state, but it was only in a half-hearted way. The wr