THE EXTENSION 5 
special economic value, nevertheless if not harmful it should 
be preserved to give charm to the landscape and afford plea- 
sure to the people who find increased enjoyment because of 
the presence of those creatures which are the living embodi- 
ment of beauty, grace, music and domestic felicity. The 
people of North Dakota have in the past thought too little 
about the discovery and perpetuation of those features of 
her natural endowment which add delight to existence. Now 
that people are coming from far distant places to study our 
bird life and find it well worth their time and effort, when 
loca] bird students who have studied our North Dakota birds 
for many years attest the richness of the possibilities which 
he within the state, when we are dealing with living forms 
which respond so quickly to favorable conditions, is it not 
time that we as a progressive, farsighted people awake to 
the opportunity and responsibility of maintaining and add- 
ing to the natural a‘tractiveness of the state by adequate 
protection of this one of our greatest natural heritages? 
This must be brought about largely through an awakened 
pubjic sentiment and the individual activities of the people 
by directing and controlling conditions upon their own pro- 
perty and in their own community. Hence the importance 
of having interest in birds diffused through all available 
channels until it reaches all the people in every community 
in the commonwealth. 
Next the point of view and the rights of the second 
eroup—the hunters,—not only of the present time but of 
generations yet unborn, must be considered. To insist that 
all hunting and killing of game birds is wrong is to main- 
tain that one ofthe most deeply planted instincts of the mas- 
culine human nature is a perversion. The primitive races 
of men found their means of livelihood largely through hunt- 
ing and success in hfe was conditioned upon strength, en- 
durance and skill in the hunt. A large majority of perfect- 
ly normal boys still, and perhaps ever will, pass through a 
period of their individual development when the hunting in- 
stinct is dominant and must be properly directed or grati- 
fied if the boy is to develop those hardy, alert and vigorous 
qualities which are of prime importance in the making of 
a man. Annually thousands of mature men, weary and 
worn by the strenuous and often unnatural toil of modern 
civilized occupations, find in the pursuit of game. birds tne 
allurement which leads them to _ forsake business 
for a few days and betake themselves to _ the 
health-giving influence of woods and_ fields. Here 
in the haunts of the game birds in contact with the ele- 
