88 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



on the altar of Rank Luxury, to tempt appetites 

 that were tired of fried chicken and other farm 

 delicacies. To-day, even the average poor man 

 hunts birds for the joy of the outing, and the 

 pampered epicures of the hotels and 'restaurants 

 buy game-birds, and eat small portions of them, 

 solely to tempt jaded appetites. If there is such a 

 thing as "class" legislation, it is that which permits 

 a few sordid market-shooters to slaughter the birds 

 of the whole people in order to sell them to a few 

 epicures. 



As the starting-point of all causes for the preser- 

 vation of wild life, the men of America should agree 

 upon what lawyers call a state of facts and the 

 inevitable logic of the situation. Let us see if we 

 can not evolve a code of ethics through the applica- 

 tion of a little philosophy to the killing of game. 



Fully 95 per cent of the men and boys who kill 

 American game regard game birds and mammals 

 only as things to be killed and eaten, to satisfy 

 hunger. This is precisely the viewpoint of the cave 

 man and the savage, and it has come down from the 

 Man- with-a- Club to the Man-with-a-Gun, abso- 

 lutely unchanged save for one thing: the latter 

 sometimes is prompted to save to-day in order to 

 slaughter more abundantly to-morrow. 



Now, as a matter of fact, with the exception of 

 the wildest regions of North America, that view- 

 point is absolutely wrong. This country has 

 reached such a stage of development and pros- 



