Page 80 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
G. O. SHIELDS
A Notable Defender of Wild Life
a hundred ducks in a day! I never have done that yet, and I would like to do it, once!"
"All right," said my friend, "I can put you in such a place ; and if you can shoot well enough, you can kill a hun- dred ducks in a day."
The effort was made in all earnest- ness. There was much shooting, but few were the ducks that fell before it. In concluding this story my friend remarked in a tone of disgust
"All the game-preserving sports- men that come to me are just like that! They want to kill all they can kill!''
There is a blood-test by which to separate the conscientious sportsmen fromthemeregunners. Hereitis
A sportsman stops shooting when game becomes scarce; knd he does not object to long-close-season laws; but
A gunner beheves in killing "all that the law allows;" and he objects to long close seasons!
I warrant that whenever and wherever this test is applied it will separate the sheep from the goats. It applies in all America, all Asia and Africa, and in Greenland, with equal force.
The Game-Hog.—This term was coined by G. O. Shields, in 1897, when he was editor and owner of Recreation Magazine, and it has come intogeneraluse. Ithasbeenrecognizedbyajudgeonthebenchasbeing an appropriate term to apply to all men who selfishly slaughter wild game beyondthelimitsofdecency. Althoughitisaharshterm,andwasmer- cilessly used by Mr. Shields in his fierce war on the men who slaughtered game for "sport," it has jarred at least a hundred thousand men into their first realization of the fact that to-day there is a difference between decencyandindecencyinthepursuitofgame. Theuseofthetermhas done very great good; but, strange to say, it has made for Mr. Shields a great many enemies outside the ranks of the game-hogs themselves! From this one might fairly suppose that there is such a thing as a sym- pathetic game-hog!
Onethingatleastiscertain. Duringaperiodofaboutsixyears,while his war with the game-hogs was on, from Maine to California, Mr. Shields's name became a genuine terror to excessive killers of game; and it is reasonably certain that his war saved a great number of game birds from the slaughter that otherwise would have overtaken them
The number of armed men and boys who annually take the field in the United States in the pursuit of birds and quadrupeds, is enormous.
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