the states prohibit the
_export_ of their game, as well as the sale of it, a very large quantity
of such game as quail, ruffed grouse, snipe, woodcock and shore birds
was illegally shot for the market, exported in defiance both of state
laws and the federal Lacey Act, and sold to the detriment of the states
that produced it. In other words, in the laws of each state that merely
sought to protect _their own_ game, regardless of the game of
neighboring states, there was not merely a loop-hole, but there was a
gap wide enough to drive through with a coach and four. The ruffed
grouse of Massachusetts and Connecticut often were butchered to make
Gotham holidays in joyous contempt of the laws at both ends of the line.
As a natural result the game of the Atlantic coast was disappearing at a
frightful rate.

[Illustration: EIGHTEEN STATES ENTIRELY PROHIBIT THE SALE OF GAME WHY DO
THE OTHERS LAG BEHIND?]

In 1911, the no-sale-of-game law of New York was born out of sheer
desperation. The Army of Destruction went up to Albany well-organized,
well provided with money and attorneys, with three senators in the
Senate and two assemblymen in the lower house, to wage merciless warfare
on the whole wild-life cause. The market gunners and game dealers not
only proposed to repeal the law against spring shooting but also to
defeat all legislation that might be attempted to restrict the sale of
game, or impose bag limits on wild fowl. The Milliners' Association
proposed to wipe off the books the Dutcher law against the use of the
plumage of wild birds in millinery, and an assemblyman was committed to
that cause as its special champion.

Then it was that all the friends of wild life in the Empire State
resolved upon a death grapple with the Destroyers, and a fight to an
absolute finish. The Bayne bill, entirely prohibiting the sale of all
native wild game throughout the state of New York, was drafted and
thrown into the ring, and the struggle began. At first the
no-sale-of-game bill looked like sheer madness, but no sooner was it
fairly launched than supporters came flocking in from every side. All
the organizations of sportsmen and friends of wild life combined in one
mighty army, the strength of which was irresistible. The real sportsmen
of the state quickly realized that the no-sale bill was _directly in the
interest of legitimate sport_. The great mass of people who love wild
life, and never kill, were quick to comprehend the far-rea