110 WILD LITE CONSERVATION 



state to protect hornless fawns! Now, when men of 

 intelligence and means can have the hardihood to 

 defend, even up to the Supreme Court of the state, 

 the killing of a little hornless fawn, what can be 

 expected of the horny-handed and bony-headed 

 backwoodsman who does not dream that there is 

 such a thing as sporting ethics? 



The ugly fetich called "personal liberty," which 

 really means license to do as the individual pleases, 

 is the curse of all American wild life and the direct 

 cause of an enormous amount of destruction and 

 local extermination. To-day our vast domains of 

 wooded mountains, hills and valleys lie practically 

 uninhabited by valuable wild life, save in a few 

 exceptional spots that could easily be named. We 

 are losing much because we are so lawless, and 

 because so many of our protective laws are treated 

 as a joke. A law that is foolishly liberal is worse 

 than none. We lose because we are too improvident 

 to conserve our most valuable wild life, unless we 

 are compelled to do so by an officer and a club. 

 We are losing, because our bag-limit laws are a 

 fraud, a delusion and a snare, so far as the real, 

 permanent preservation of game is concerned. 



The law-breakers, the game-hogs and the shame- 

 less slayers of fawns and does are everywhere. Of 

 all the men in the United States to-day, I believe 

 that fully 10 per cent are already poachers and law- 

 breakers on the sly, or else they are ready to become 

 so to-morrow. The states that contain the greatest 



