FOREST RESERVES AS BREEDING PLACES FOR 

 WILD LIFE x 



The preservation and propagation of game has in most 

 countries met with much hostility among the people. The 

 laws have been stringent and severe, and their enforce- 

 ment has been harsh and unpopular. The Norman con- 

 querors of England destroyed many fine farms to plant 

 the New Forest for the royal pleasure. From the time 

 when William Shakespeare was prosecuted for poaching, 

 down to the present day, game laws have met with deter- 

 mined opposition. Harriet Martineau's spirited attacks 

 upon these laws in England aided in bringing her volu- 

 minous writing into popularity. She struck a popular 

 chord with the general public. 



Those laws in the old world were enacted for the com- 

 fort of a privileged class, and it was hardly to be expected 

 that the poor would obey, without complaint, laws which 

 protected the wild creatures from the fowling pieces and 

 snares of the poor, in order that there might be sport for 

 the nobility. 



But in America no such invidious distinction exists, and 

 the preservation of our birds and game becomes a matter 

 of general interest to all, to rich and poor alike. 



The whole continent was once a vast park filled with 

 wild life in forest, mountain, and plain, whilst the air was 

 alive with the feathered flocks. 



The preservation of these creatures was long neglected, 

 because their innumerable multitude seemed to make it 

 impossible that they should ever be exterminated. 



With the disappearance of the wild pigeon and the buf- 



1 By John F. Lacey. 



