THE NEW HUNTING 109 



other species. All this needs justification. The 

 lower creation is not the plaything of man. 



We are still obliged to kill for our necessities. 

 We must secure food and raiment. More and 

 more we are rearing the animals that we would take 

 for food. We give them happier lives. We 

 protect them from the severities of the struggle for 

 existence. We remove them from the necessities 

 of protecting themselves from violence. We take 

 our own. There is no question of morals. We 

 give that we may take ; and we take because we 

 must. 



To kill for mere sport is a very different matter: 

 it lies outside the realm of struggle for existence. 

 Too often there is not even the justification of fair 

 play. Usually the hunter exposes himself to no 

 danger from the animal that he would kill. He 

 takes no risks. He has the advantage of long-range 

 weapons. There is no combat. Over on the lake 

 shore are great cones of ice, built up by the 

 accretions of the waves. Several stalwart men have 

 skulkedbehind them andlie secure fromobservation. 

 A little flock of birds, unsuspecting, unprotected, 

 harming no man, obeying the laws of their kind, 

 skims across the water. The guns discharge. The 

 whole flock falls, the mangled birds struggling and 

 crying, and tainting the water with their blood as 

 they are carried away on the waves, perhaps to die 

 on the shores. There is a shout of victory. Surely, 

 man is the king of beasts I 



But there is another and fairer side than this. 

 The lack of feeling for wounded animals is often 



