Sec. 11. J BIRDS. 199 



cargoes of wild animals sent down yearly, so soon as cold weather allows its 

 safe transportation by express companies and railroad cars — immense, yet 

 still inadequate to meet the cull of the markets, althouj^h the illimitable 

 West is fast suffering depletion, and is in some States legislating against ex- 

 portation — have quickened the perception of agriculturists to the fact, that 

 if game be worth as much ninncy in the market as poultry, or more, and can 

 be raised at no cost and less than no trouble, it is better to have the woods, 

 wliic'li they necessarily keep up as timber lots, the hill-sides, which are too 

 craggy and sterile of soil to rear anything but brambles and ferns, and the 

 morasses, which it would be too costly to drain, swarming with profitable 

 wild animals, than waste and unprofitable ; and to the other fact, that if 

 money is to be made by killing game on their lands, it is as well at least, if 

 not better, to make it themselves, and to go on making it, year after year, 

 by maintaining a sufficient breeding stock, as to suffer it to be made out of 

 their pockets by every landless, shiftless vagabond who chooses to stampede 

 every head of game out of every farm, and who has no earthly reason or 

 inducements why he should not kill as speedily as possible the goose which 

 lays the golden eggs — seeing that the goose, if slain by himself, is clearly 

 /(«, while the eggs, infuturo, may fall to the lot of any other Tom, Dick, or 

 Harry of his own reputable or disrei)utable order. 



The farmers and land-owners being thus convinced of the loss directly 

 attributable to the killing of small birds at all, at any season, and of the great 

 gain certainly attainable by the protection of the game during the breeding 

 seasons, have of late, in many States and counties of States, procured statutes 

 to be passed for the preservation, absolutely and at all times, of certain 

 innoxious and useful small birds. l>ut all tiiese statutes have defects, besides 

 the one alluded to — the lack of proper instruction to the children. 



It is a defect in our State law that no penalty is provided sufficient to 

 prevent hunting all the jniblic highways, or other public grounds, and the 

 penalty for entering your premises is quite inadequate to tiieir protection, 

 because you can not afford to procure testimony, and hire attorneys to pros- 

 cculc a fellow who will verify the adage of " sue a beggar and catch a louse." 



The statutes in question are not asked or enacted for the defense of ju-ivate 

 rights of private individuals, though they may defend them incidentally, 

 but for that of the community at large, to wiiich the .safety of crops and the 

 greatest possible suj)ply of loud df all kinds in the market, at the lowest jms- 

 sible rates, are incontestably benefits. Therefore the community has not 

 only a right, but it is its especial duty to enforce the same protection and 

 preservation of the same animals on its own possessions — that is to say, on 

 the highways, wastes, commons, and all other unoccupied lands or waters of 

 which the ])ul)lic are the guardians and occupants — as it commands on the 

 private i.intls nf individuals from Inspassers. 



So convinced are the scicntitic agriculturists of France of the importance 

 of raising all those species of wild animals which are natural, indigenous, 

 or capable of being acclimated and naturalized to the waste lands, of which 



