QUEBEC: 

Pigeon.

SASKATCHEWAN: 

Pigeon; bison.

* * * * *

BIRDS AND MAMMALS THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION

The second question submitted in my inquiry produced results even more startling than the first.  None of the persons reporting can be regarded as alarmists, but some of the lists of species approaching extinction are appallingly long.  To their observations I add other notes and observations of interest at this time.

ALABAMA: 

Wood-duck, snowy egret, woodcock.  “The worst enemy of wild life is the pot-hunter and game hog.  These wholesale slaughterers of game resort to any device and practice, it matters not how murderous, to accomplish the pernicious ends of their nefarious campaign of relentless extermination of fur and feather.  They cannot be controlled by local laws, for these after having been tried for several generations have proven consummate failures, for the reason that local authorities will not enforce the provisions of game and bird protective statutes.  Experience has demonstrated the fact that no one desires to inform voluntarily on his neighbors, and since breaking the game law is not construed to involve moral turpitude, even to an infinitesimal degree, by many of our citizens, the plunderers of nature’s storehouse thus go free, it matters not how great the damage done to the people as a whole.”—­(John H. Wallace, Jr., Game Commissioner of Alabama.)

ALASKA: 

Thanks to geographic and climatic conditions, the Alaskan game laws and $15,000 with which to enforce them, the status of the wild life of Alaska is fairly satisfactory.  I think that at present no species is in danger of extinction in the near future.  When it was pointed out to Congress in 1902, by Madison Grant, T.S.  Palmer and others that the wild life of Alaska was seriously threatened, Congress immediately enacted the law that was recommended, and now appropriates yearly a fair sum for its enforcement.  I regard the Alaskan situation as being, for so vast and difficult a region, reasonably well in hand, even though open to improvement.

There is one fatal defect in our Alaskan game law, in the perpetual and sweeping license to kill, that is bestowed upon “natives” and “prospectors.”  Under cover of this law, the Indians can slaughter game to any extent they choose; and they are great killers.  For example:  In 1911 at Sand Point, Kenai Peninsula, Frank E. Kleinchmidt saw 82 caribou tongues in the boat of a native, that had been brought in for sale at 50 cents, while the carcasses were left where they fell, to poison the air of Alaska.  Thanks to the game law, and five wardens, the number of big game animals killed last year in Alaska by sportsmen was reasonably small,—­just as it should have been.—­(W.T.H.)

ARIZONA: 

During an overland trip made by Dr. MacDougal and others in 1907 from Tucson to Sonoyta, on the international boundary, 150 miles and back again, we saw not one antelope or deer.—­(W.T.H.)