Page 226 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

204 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
much genuine admiration for game animals, or any feeling remotely resembling regard for it.
The moment that a majority of American gunners concede the fact that game birds are worth preserving for their beauty, and their value as living neighbors to man, from that moment there is hope for the saving of the Remnant. That will indeed be the beginning of a new era, of a millennium in fact, in the preservation of wild life. It will then be easy toenactlawsforten-yearcloseseasonsonwholegroupsofspecies. Think what it would mean for such a close season to be enacted for all the grouse of the United States, all the shore-birds of the United States, or the wild turkey wherever found!
To-day, the great—indeed, the only—opponents of long close seasons ongamebirdsarethegunners. Wheneverandwhereveryouintroduce a bill to pro\dde such a season, you will find that this is true. The gun clubs and the Downtrodden Hunters' and Anglers' Protective Associa- tions will be quick to go after their representatives, and oppose the bill. And state senators and assemblymen will think very hard and with strong courage before they deliberately resolve to do their duty regard- less of the opposition of "a large body of sportsmen,"—men who have votes, and who know how to take revenge on lawmakers who deprive them of their "right" to kill. The greatest speech ever made in the Mexican Congress was uttered by the member who solemnly said: "I rise to sacrifice ambition to honor!"
Unfortunately, the men who shoot have become possessed of the idea that they have certain inherent, God-given "rights " to kill game! Now, as a matter of fact, a sportsman with a one-hundred-dollar Fox gun in his hands, a two-hundred-dollar dog at his heels and five one-hundred-dollar bills in his pocket has no more "right" to kill a covey of quail on Long Island than my milkman has to elect that it shall be let alone for the pleasureofhischildren! Thetimehascomewhenthepeoplewhodon't shoot must do one of two things:
1. Theymustdemonstratethefactthattheyhaverightsinthe wild creatures, and demand their recognition, or
2. See the killable game all swept off the continent by the Army of Destruction.
Really, it is to me very strange that gUDners never care to save game birdsonaccountoftheirbeauty. Onelivingbobwhiteonafenceis better than a score in a bloody game-bag. A live squirrel in a tree is poetry in motion ; but on the table a squirrel is a rodent that tastes as a ratsmells. Besidetheoceanaflockofsandpipersisneededtocomplete the beautiful picture; but on the table a sandpiper is beneath contempt. A live deer trotting over a green meadow, waving a triangular white flag, is a sight to thrill any human ganglion; but a deer lying dead,—unless it has an exceptionally fine head,—is only so much butcher's meat.
One of the finest sights I ever saw in Montana was a big flock of sage grouse slowly stalking over a grassy flat thinly sprinkled with sage-brush. It was far more inspiring than any pile of dead birds that I ever saw.