604 DUCK SHOOTING. 



over the country where the wildfowl spend nearly two- 

 thirds of the year, and shooting during all this time, 

 must destroy more of these fowl than, under the most 

 favorable circumstances, can be bred in the far North, 

 where they are comparatively little disturbed during 

 their sojourn there during the breeding season. 



We must look at fowl-shooting just as we do at 

 every other form of field sport. As game and fish be- 

 come more scarce, limitations must be placed on their 

 capture, and those methods of destruction which are 

 most sweeping in their results must be forbidden by law 

 or by public sentiment. Game laws are enacted for 

 the general good — for the good of people to-day, and in 

 the future — and they ought to be framed to subserve the 

 greatest good to the greatest number, and to preserve 

 for the use of all our people as great a number as pos- 

 sible of our beautiful wild creatures. Although the 

 seining of trout affords a most successful means of 

 taking fish, it is made illegal by statute, because it de- 

 stroys on such a wholesale scale that a few men might 

 soon capture all the fish in a stream, and there would 

 be none left for others. 



Thus, if we are to continue to have any duck shoot- 

 ing, limitations of one sort or another must be put on 

 this sport, just as such limitations are put on the shoot- 

 ing of other birds and animals, and the taking of fish. 

 Gunners must consent to practice self-control. Fewer 

 birds must be killed each season. 



These limitations should act in two directions, viz., 

 in shortening the time during which fowl may be shot, 



