When game is protected by law, thousands of people with money desire it for their tables, just the same, and are willing to pay fabulous prices for what they want, when they want it.  Many a dealer is quite willing to run the risk of fines, because fines don’t really hurt; they are only annoying.  The dealer wishes to make the big profit, and retain his customers; “and besides,” he reasons, “if I don’t supply him some one else will; so what is the difference?”

When game is scarce, prices high and the consumer’s money ready, there are a hundred tricks to which shooters and dealers willingly resort to ship and receive unlawful game without detection.  It takes the very best kind of game wardens,—­genuine detectives, in fact,—­to ferret out these cunning illegal practices, and catch lawbreakers “with the goods on them,” so that they can be punished.  Mind you, convictions can not be secured at both ends of the line save by the most extraordinary good fortune, and usually the shooter and shipper escape, even when the dealer is apprehended and fined.

[Illustration:  A PERFECTLY LAWFUL BAG OF 58 RUFFED GROUSE FOR TWO MEN From “Rod and Gun in Canada”]

Here are some of the methods that have been practiced in the past in getting illegal game into the New York market: 

Ruffed grouse and quail have both been shipped in butter firkins, marked “butter”; and latterly, butter has actually been packed solidly on top of the birds.

Ruffed grouse and quail very often have been shipped in egg crates, marked “eggs.”  They have been shipped in trunks and suit cases,—­a very common method for illegal game birds, all over the United States.  In Oklahoma when a man refuses to open his trunk for a game warden, the warden joyously gets out his brace and bitt, and bores an inch hole into the lower story of the trunk.  If dead birds are there, the tell-tale auger quickly reveals them.

Three years ago, I was told that certain milk-wagons on Long Island made daily collections of dead ducks intended for the New York market, and the drivers kindly shipped them by express from the end of the route.

Once upon a time, a New York man gave notice that on a certain date he would be in a certain town in St. Lawrence County, New York, with a palace horse-car, “to buy horses.”  Car and man appeared there as advertised.  Very ostentatiously, he bought one horse, and had it taken aboard the car before the gaze of the admiring populace.  At night, when the A.P. had gone to bed, many men appeared, and into the horseless end of that car, they loaded thousands of ruffed grouse.  The game warden who described the incident to me said:  “That man pulled out for New York with one horse and half a car load of ruffed grouse!”

Whenever a good market exists for the sale of game, as sure as the world that market will be supplied.  Twenty-six states forbid by law the sale of their own “protected” game, but twenty of them do not expressly prohibit the sale of game stolen from neighboring states!  That is a very, very weak point in the laws of all those states.  A child can see how it works.  Take Pittsburgh as a case in point.