2O4 



PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



Then Robin Rood took his good yew bow in his hand, and 

 placing the tip at his instep, he strung it right deftly; then he 

 nocked a broad clothyard arrow and raising the bow, drew the 

 gray goose- feather to his ear ; the next moment the bow-string 

 rang and the arrow sped down the glade as a sparrowhawk 

 skims in a northern wind. High leaped the noblest hart of all 

 the herd, only to fall dead, reddening the green path with his 

 heart's blood. 



" Ha," cried Robin, " how likest thou that shot, good fellow? 

 I wot the wager is mine, an it were three hundred pounds." 



Then all the foresters were filled with rage, and he who had 

 spoken the first and lost the wager was more angry than all. 



" Nay," cried he, " the wager is none of thine, and get thee 

 gone, straightway, or, by all the saints of heaven, i'll baste thy 

 sides until thou wilt never be able to walk again." 



" Knowest thou not," said another, " that thou hast killed the 

 King's deer, and, by all the laws of our gracious lord and sover- 

 eign, King Harry, thine ears should be shaven close to thy 

 head?" 



Never a word said Robin but he looked at the foresters with 

 a grim face; then, turning on his heel, strode away from them 

 down the forest glade. But his heart was bitterly angry, for his 

 blood was hot and youthful and prone to boil. 



Robin Hood lay hidden in Sherwood Forest for one year, and 

 in that time gathered around him many others like himself, cast 

 out from other folk for this cause or that. Some had shot deer 

 in hungry winter time, when they could get no other food, and 

 had been seen in the act by foresters but had escaped, thus 

 saving their ears. Some had been turned out of their inherit- 

 ance that their farms might be added to the King's land in 

 Sherwood Forest. All, for one cause or another, had come to 

 Sherwood to escape wrong and oppression. 



The root of the problem now, as in Robin Hood's time, 

 lies in the fact that breaking the game law is not regarded 

 as morally wrong except in unusual circumstances. Killing 



