The Quail, (he Farmer's Friend. 391 



of the mountains, it is known as "Bob White" — the true name of this 

 species adopted by ornithologists. And so it is, for the protection and 

 preservation of this messenger of civilization, proud aristocrat of farm 

 and field and orchard, that I press this measure upon the Senate. 



Senators from favored sections of the State, where these birds are 

 fairly plentiful, argue that to enact such a law would be unjust to their 

 constituents. In this I find no comfort for them, but one of the strongest 

 arguments favoring the passage of the bill. History repeats itself. 

 Within the memory of some of my distinguished colleagues, the princely 

 domain which I represent was indeed a "hunters' paradise." Deer broke 

 covert from every brake; wild pigeons clouded the sun as vast flocks 

 passed from feeding to roosting places ; wild turkeys in almost countless 

 numbers were everywhere ; prairie chickens abode with us in content- 

 ment; wild geese — harbingers of coming fall and spring — covered the 

 sandbars of our rivers, or on mighty wing rushed through the air, but — 



"There is a Power .whose care 



Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 



The desert and illimitable air, 



Lone wandering, but not lost." 



How the change doth vex us! Sad is the retrospect. In secluded 

 places, scattered far and wide over a limited section of the State, the 

 deer are making their last gallant stand; wild pigeons live only in the 

 glorious traditions of our great commonwealth; the prairie chicken is 

 now rara avis, and the wild goose calls in alarm his scattered few as 

 high above their would-be murderers they cleave the blue of the skies, 

 hastening to the few remaining asylums of peace in the far away south- 

 land or in the frozen regions of the north. So it has been given to me 

 to witness the almost incredible destruction of this' valuable game, not at 

 the hands of true sportsmen, who have long waged unequal battle to 

 stay the wholesale and inexcusable slaughter, but to satisfy the inordinate 

 appetite of the ' ' game hog ' ' and his foster brother, the ' ' pot hunter, ' ' who 

 slew — and still slay — that they may boast of the cruel carnage wrought 

 and to furnish a precarious living for the market hunter who stains 

 himself with the butchery of these creatures God Almighty gave to bless 

 the lives of men. Senators, what is true of my section of the State will 

 be in a few years the sad story you will have to tell of man 's inhumanity 

 to game life. It will then be everlastingly too late to repine. "The 

 moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on: nor all your piety nor 

 wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out 

 a word of it. ' ' Let us not longer impede the steps of tardy legislation, 

 but plant our standards close about this finest of American game birds. 



What a splendid fight the Bob White is making against the com- 

 bined hosts of his enemies, and what a fine battle the farmers of my dis- 



