128 OUR NATIVE BIRDS 
not hunted for sport, it would be hunted for profit by 
the market hunter. Thus a few men would benefit, 
while the large number would be excluded. In some 
localities birds and beasts of prey would greatly in- 
crease, and in other regions game animals would have 
to be destroyed to prevent damage to agricultural or 
stock-raising interests. 
Therefore, if you feel inclined to use gun and rod, 
follow your inclination, but obey the game laws, so that 
the next man will also have some recreation left, in other 
words: Don’t be a game hog or a fish hog! If your 
boy wants a gun, by all means buy him one if you can 
afford it, but have him taught how to handle it, and 
what is game and what is not. A week after chickens, 
ducks, or deer will do you more good than all the pills 
you can buy and eat in a twelvemonth. 
Every one who has looked into the question knows 
that real sportsmen kill their game more humanely 
than market hunters, head, skin or bounty hunters. 
A man who hunts wolves and coyotes for bounty is, 
however, doing good work for the sportsmen as well as 
for farmers and stock-raisers. 
If you go into fields and woods for sport, do not shoot 
unless you have a reasonable chance to kill, and always 
try to procure the animal you have wounded. A sports- 
man is not a savage, he leaves something for his neigh- 
bor, and does not kill and catch more than he can use. 
A sportsman never shoots a doe and starves the suck- 
ling fawn, he never kills the mother bird and starves the 
nestlings. Nor would he think of snaring or trapping 
