Page 228 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

206 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
I remember scores of beautiful game birds that I have seen and not killed ; but of all the game birds that I have eaten or tried to eat in New York, I remember with sincere pleasure only one. Some of the ancient cold-storage candidates I remember "for cause," as the lawyers say.
Sportsmen and gunners, for God's sake elevate your viewpoint of the gameoftheworld. Getoutofthegrooveinwhichmanhasrunever since the days of Adam! There is something in a game bird over and above its pound of flesh. You don't "need" the meat any longer; for you don't know what hunger is, save by reading of it. Try the field- glassandthecamera,insteadoftheeverlastinggun. Anyfoolcantake a five-dollar gun and kill a bird ; but it takes a genius to photograph one wildbirdandget"agoodone." Ashunters,thecameramenhavethe best of it. One good live-bird photograph is more of a trophy and a triumph than a bushel of dead birds. The birds and mammals now are literally dying for your help in the making of long close seasons, and in the real stoppage of slaughter. Can you not hear the call of the wild remnant ?
It is time for the people who don't shoot to call a halt on those who do; "and if this be treason, then let my enemies make the most of it!"
Since the above was written, I have read in the Outdoor World for April, 1912, the views of a veteran sportsman and writer, Mr. Emerson Hough,onthewild-lifesituationasitseemstohimto-day. Itisastrong utterance, even though it reaches a pessimistic and gloomy conclusion whichIdonotshare. Altogether,however,itsbreadthofview,itsgen- eral accuracy, and its incisiveness, entitle it to a full hearing. The follow- ing is only an extract from a lengthy article entitled, "God's Acre:"
EMERSON HOUGH'S VIEW OF THE SITUATION
The truth is none the less the truth because it is unpleasant to face. There is no well posted sportsman in America, no manufacturer of sporting goods in America, no man well versed in American outdoor matters, who does not know that we are at the eveningofthedayofopensportinAmerica. Ouroldwayshavefailed,allofthem have failed. The declining fortunes of the best sportsman's journals of America would prove that, if proof were asked. Our sportsmanship has failed. Our game laws have failed, and we know they have failed. Our game is almost gone, and we know it is almostgone. Americahaschangedandweknowthatithaschanged,althoughwe have not changed with it. The old America is done and it is gone, and we know that to be the truth. The old order passeth, and we know that the new order must come soon if it is to work any salvation for our wild game and our life in the open in pursuit of it.
There are man}'' reasons for this fact, these facts. Perhaps the greatest lies in the steady advance of civilization into the wilderness, the usurpation for agricultural or industrial use of many of the ancient breeding and feeding places of the wild game. All over the West and" now all over Canada, the plow advances, that one engine which cannot be gainsaid, which never turns a backward furrow.
Another great agency is the rapid perfection of transportation all over the world. Take the late influx of East African literature. If there really were not access to that country we would not have this literature, would not have so many pictures from that country. AndifevenAfricawillsoonbeoverrun,ifevenAfricasoonwillbeshotout, what hope is there for the game of the wholly accessible No'th American continent?
It is all too easy now for the slaughterer to get to his work, all too easy for him to