VALUABLE WILD LIFE 17 



and in some localities by white men calling 

 themselves sportsmen but lacking anything even 

 remotely resembling a code of ethics in shooting. 



Although in general it is our duty to let bygones 

 be bygones, and not rake up the disagreeable 

 embers of the past, we are not yet so far on the 

 road to reform that we need ignore the things of 

 yesterday. The martins, swallows, nighthawks, 

 robins and bobolinks that have been shot in the 

 South by sportsmen as "game" and for "food," and 

 the doves that have been slaughtered all the way 

 from the Carolinas to California, still cry out for 

 protection for the remnant. 



A little later we will consider more fully the rela- 

 tions of birds and mammals to agriculture, horti- 

 culture and forestry. This subject is of vast 

 importance to our country, and in view of the 

 extent to which it already is understood by the most 

 intelligent of our American farmers, it is strange 

 that the logic of the situation has not produced 

 more thorough and universal protection for the 

 farmers' feathered friends and allies. 



In order to lay a foundation for a comprehensive 

 knowledge of the subject before us, it is impera- 

 tively necessary that the forces operating for the 

 extermination of wild life should be thoroughly 

 known. 



To-day this country of ours is the theater of a 

 remarkable struggle between the great forces of 

 destruction and the small forces of protection and 



