SIZE OF BAGS. 595 



ket-shooter who, to our mind, was a far truer sports- 

 man than many of that class who contemn him. The 

 harm wrought by the market gunner is due to the fact 

 that he works at gunning day after day through the 

 shooting season, and so, individually, kills a vast num- 

 ber of birds. The ravages of the market hunter will 

 cease when laws shall be put in force properly regu- 

 lating the sale of game. 



Within the past few years the question of the size of 

 catch of fish or bags of game has been taken hold of 

 by the legislature of various States, and laws have been 

 passed limiting the quantity of fish, birds or mammals 

 that one person can kill in one day. Some States have 

 gone further than this, and have placed a limit not only 

 on what shall be taken in a day, but also in a season. 

 Such legislation has the support of public opinion, and 

 so, enforced by the game wardens, it cannot fail to 

 do great good. Neither the market-shooter nor the 

 non-professional gunner has sufficient self-control to 

 stop shooting when he has killed a fair bag of birds. 

 Instead of this, he will continue to shoot as long as the 

 fowl fly, and in this respect the two classes are equally 

 blameworthy. Every man remembers the many days 

 which were almost blanks, and those other days on 

 which but few birds were killed; it is but human — 

 when the occasional good days come — that the gunner 

 should wish to make the most of his opportunities, and 

 should try to average up the bad days. Bags of sixty, 

 eighty, and sometimes even a hundred birds are not 

 uncommon. Yet, under the conditions which exist in 



