CHAPTER XXI. 



HUNTING LORE. 



IT has been my good-luck to kill every kind of game 

 properly belonging to the United States : though one 

 beast which I never had a chance to slay, the jaguar, 

 from the torrid South, sometimes comes just across the 

 Rio Grande ; nor have I ever hunted the musk-ox and 

 polar bear in the boreal wastes where they dwell, sur- 

 rounded by the frozen desolation of the uttermost North. 

 I have never sought to make large bags, for a hunter 

 should not be a game butcher. It is always lawful to kill 

 dangerous or noxious animals, like the bear, cougar, and 

 wolf ; but other game should only be shot when there is 

 need of the meat, or for the sake of an unusually fine 

 trophy. Killing a reasonable number of bulls, bucks, or 

 rams does no harm whatever to the species ; to slay half 

 the males of any kind of game would not stop the natural 

 increase, and they yield the best sport, and are the legiti- 

 mate objects of the chase. Cows, does, and ewes, on the 

 contrary, should only be killed (unless barren) in case of 

 necessity ; during my last five years' hunting I have killed 

 but five — one by a mischance, and the other four for the 



table. 



448 



