PBESEBYATICS" OF GAME. 187 



shoot fairly, it is hardly likely that he will care to spare 

 the breeding-birds, when he knows that they are pretty 

 certain to be shot by some one or other less scrupulous 

 than himself. 



The inhabitants of any wild country, who depend upon 

 the chase as a subsistence, have, as it were, a primd facie 

 right to the game of that country, and are, perhaps, 

 justified in taking it at any season, as they best can. 

 They wander about from spot to spot, and are not con- 

 tinually disturbing one district; they have different 

 hunting-grounds for different seasons ; their implements 

 of chase are rude, in comparison with those used by 

 the civilized man ; and they never care to take more 

 than just enough to satisfy their wants, and there would 

 be little fear of the game being ever entirely killed out 

 if they were the only persons who followed the chase. 

 But the case is far different when thousands of strangers 

 flock to a new country, and wage an indiscriminate war 

 at all seasons against the wild game peculiar to that land. 

 It is then time that some measures should be taken to 

 preserve the game, and if the shooters themselves are 

 too blind to their own interests to do so, the law should 

 interfere. But let me not be misunderstood. I am not 

 here advocating any system of game-laws that will cramp 

 the sportsman in this free country as the Legislature 

 has already done at home ; all I wish to see is a stop 

 put to the ruthless slaughter of the old birds in the 

 breeding season, and I am sure every fair sportsman will 

 join in my views. Let us have no license. Let a man 



