[Illustration: A MARKET GUNNER AT WORK ON MARSH ISLAND
Killing Mallards for the New Orleans Market. The Purchase of This Island by
Mrs. Russell Sage has now Converted it Into a Bird Sanctuary]

The output of this systematic bird slaughter has supplied the greedy
game markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore,
Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco,
Portland, and Seattle. The history of this industry, its methods, its
carnage, its profits and its losses would make a volume, but we can not
enter upon it here. Beyond reasonable doubt, this awful traffic in dead
game is responsible for at least three-fourths of the slaughter that has
reduced our game birds to a mere remnant of their former abundance.
There is no influence so deadly to wild life as that of the market
gunner who works six days a week, from sunrise until sunset, hunting
down and killing every game bird that he can reach with a choke-bore
gun.

During the past five years, several of the once-great killing grounds
have been so thoroughly "shot out" that they have ceased to hold their
former rank. This is the case with the Minnesota Lakes, the Sunk Lands
of Arkansas, the Klamath Lakes of Oregon, and I think it is also true of
southern California. The Klamath Lakes have been taken over by the
Government as a bird refuge. Currituck Sound, at the northeastern corner
of North Carolina, has been so bottled up by the Bayne law of New York
State that Currituck's greatest market has been cut off. Last year only
one-half the usual number of ducks and geese were killed; and already
many "professional" duck and brant shooters have abandoned the business
because the commission merchants no longer will buy dead birds.

[Illustration: RUFFED GROUSE