594 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



to enact a statute designed to correct an evil, and then we 

 promptly go off and forget all about it. The law then is 

 either repealed or becomes a "dead letter," known to few and 

 soon forgotten; neither observed nor enforced. 



There is little respect for the game and bird laws. Their 

 enforcement is lax, and many gunners know little and care 

 less about them. Many people consider it rather "smart" to 

 break the game laws or the trespass laws. It is looked upon 

 as rather the "sporting thing" to do. The feeling toward the 

 laws, and the officers who are designated to enforce them, is 

 quite different here from that prevailing in most parts of 

 Canada or in England, where the game laws are respected, 

 and the lawbreaker is looked down upon by decent people 

 and is as much abhorred as a thief. 



It is not the fault of game commissioners that game laws 

 are neither enforced nor respected. It is the fault of the 

 system, or, rather, our own fault as a people, for we have per- 

 mitted and established the system. In criticizing it we are 

 merely criticizing our own handiwork. The whole matter of 

 game protection is in our hands. We do not take enough 

 interest in the game or the game laws; we neither know nor 

 care enough about them. 



If every man applying for a hunter's license were obliged 

 to pass an examination on the game and bird laws of his State, 

 or to identify by name specimens of all the birds that the law 

 allows him to shoot, and those that are protected under the 

 law, very few hunting licenses ever would be granted. Are 

 we to expect observance of the law when the gunners them- 

 selves do not know the law or the birds that are protected 

 under it.^ I know of three cases where game wardens have, 

 through ignorance, shot birds which were protected by law, 

 and another warden arrested by mistake an innocent man, 

 and haled him into court, only to find that the birds in 

 his possession were not protected by law. If game wardens 

 do not know the birds, what can be expected of the hunter.'^ 



Present conditions can be changed for the better by a 

 movement to awaken public interest in living game birds, 

 and to strengthen the sentiment for their protection. 



