CHAPTER XII 



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, surrounded by the frozen desola- 

 tion 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 reason- 

 able 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 in- 

 crease, and they yield the best sport, and are the 

 legitimate 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 



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