Page 398 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER XLI
TEACHING WILD LIFE PROTECTION TO THE YOUNG
Thousands of busy and burdened men and women are to-day striving hard, early and late, to promote measures that will preserve the valuable wildlifeoftheworld. Theydesiretoleavetotheboysandgirlsofto- morrow a good showing of the marvelous bird and animal forms that make the world beautiful and interesting. They are acting on the prin- ciple that the wild life of to-day is not ours, to destroy or to keep as we choose, but has been given to us in trust, partly for our benefit and partly forthosewhocomeafterusandauditouraccounts. Theybelievethat we have no right to squander and destroy a wild-life heritage of priceless value which we have done nothing to create, and which is not ours to destroy.
Duty of Parents.—This being the case, it is very necessary that the young people of to-day should be taught, early and often, the virtue and thenecessityofwild-lifeprotection. Thereisnoreasonthattheboyof to-day should not take up his share of the common burden, just as soon as he is old enough to wander alone through the woods. Let him be taught in precise terms that he must not rob birds' nests, and that he must not shoot song-birds, woodpeckers and kingfishers with a 22-calibre rifle, oranyothergun. Atthismomentthereliesuponmysidetableavicious little 22-calibre rifle that was taken from two boys who were camping in the woods of Connecticut, and amusing themselves by shooting val- uable insectivorous birds. Now those boys were not wholly to blame for what they were doing; but their fathers and mothers were very much toblame! Theyshouldhavebeentaughtattheparentalkneethatitis very wrong to kill any bird except a genuine game bird, and then only inthelawfulopenseason. Thosetwofatherspaid$10eachforhaving failed in their duty; and it served them right; for they were the real culprits.
Small-calibre rifles are becoming alarmingly common in the hands of boys. Parents must do their duty in the training of their boys against bird-shooting! Itisaveryseriousmatter. Amillionboyswhoroamthe fields with small rifles without having been instructed in protection, can destroy, an appalling number of valuable birds in the course of a year. Some parents are so slavishly devoted to their children that they wish them to do everything they please, and be checked in nothing. Such parents constitute one of the pests of society, and a drag upon the happi- ness of their own children ! It is now the bounden duty of each parent to teach each one of his or her children that the time has come when the