t of the decrease in our feathered
game is due to market-gunning, and the sale of game. Look at the
prairie chicken of the Mississippi Valley, and the ruffed grouse of
New England.

6.--Because the laws that permit the commercial slaughter of wild
birds for the benefit of less than five per cent of the inhabitants
of any state are directly against the interest of the 95 per cent of
other people, to _whom that game partly belongs_.

7.--Because game killed "for sale" is not intended to satisfy
"hunger." The people who eat game in large cities do not know what
hunger is, save by hearsay. Purchased game is used chiefly in
over-feeding; and as a rule it does far more harm than good.

8.--Because the greatest value to be derived from any game bird is
in seeing it, and photographing it, and enjoying its living company
in its native haunts. Who will love the forests when they become
destitute of wild life, and desolate?

9.--Because stopping the sale of game _will help bring back the game
birds to us, in a few years_.

10.--Because the pace that New York and Massachusetts have set in
this matter will render it easier to procure the passage of Bayne
laws in other states.

11.--Because those who legitimately desire game for their tables can
be supplied from the game farms and preserves that now are coming
into existence.

When New York's far-reaching Bayne bill became a law, the following dead
birds lay in cold storage in New York City:

Wild duck 98,156
Plover 48,780
Quail 14,227
Grouse 21,202
Snipe 7,825
Woodcock 767
Rail 419
-------
191,376

They represented the last slaughterings of American game for New York.
To-day the remaining plague-spots are Chicago, Philadelphia, San
Francisco, Baltimore, Washington and New Orleans; but in New Orleans the
brakes have at last (1912) been applied, and the market slaughter that
formerly prevailed in that state has at least been checked.

As an instance of persistent market shooting on the greatest ducking
waters of the eastern United States, I offer this report from a
trustworthy agent sent to Currituck Sound, North Carolina, in March,
1911.

I beg to submit the following information relative to the number of
wild ducks and geese shipped from this market and killed in the
waters of Back Bay an