GAME AND ITS PROTECTION". 145 



bright feathers, gleaming amid the green leaves, be 

 missed, but some species of bug or insect, some 

 disgusting caterpillar or injurious fly, will escape 

 well merited destruction, and increasingly visit upon 

 man the punishment of his cruelty and folly. 



The beautiful blue-birds, the numerous wood- 

 peckers, the tiny wrens, the graceful swallows and 

 noisy martins, are sacred to the sportsman, and con- 

 stitute one great division of the creatures that he 

 desires to protect. It is true that enthusiastic for- 

 eigners, with cast-iron guns, are seen peering into 

 trees and lurking through the woods, proud of a 

 dirty bag half filled with robins, thrushes, and wood- 

 peckers ; but let no ignorant reader confound such 

 persons with sportsmen. Their satisfaction in slay- 

 ing one beautiful little warbler, as full of melody as 

 it is bare (>f meat, wdth a deadly charge of No. 4 

 shot ; or in chasing from tree to tree the agile red 

 squirrel, who, with bushy tail erect, leaps from one 

 limb to another, emulating the very birds them- 

 selves with his agility, is as unsportsmanlike as to 

 kill a cheeping quail, that, struggling from the thick 

 weeds in September before the pointer's nose, with 

 feeble wings, skirts the low brush; or to murder 

 the brooding woodcock, that flutters up before the 

 dog in June, and, with holy maternal instinct, en- 

 deavours to lead the pursuer from her infant brood. 



From such acts the veritable sportsman turns 

 with horror; they are cruelty — the slaughter of 

 what is useless for food, or what, by its death, will 

 produce misery to others; and no persons in the 



