GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 13 
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- 
eloners, 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 of meat, with 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 
