12 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



choicest game, whether of fur, fin, or feather, as 'the United 

 States of North America ; there is none, probably, which counts 

 more numerous, or more ardent, devotees ; there is none, cer- 

 tainly, in which the wide-spread passion for the chase can be 

 indulged, under so few restrictions, and at an expense so trifling. 



" Yet all this, notwithstanding, it is to be regretted greatly that 

 there is no country in which the nomenclature of these Jem na- 

 turcE, these roving denizens of wood, wold and water, is so con- 

 fused and unscientific ; none, in which their habits are so little 

 known, and their seasons so little regarded ; none, in which the 

 gentle craft of Venerieis so often degraded into mere pot-hunting; 

 and none, in which, as a natural consequence, the game that 

 swarmed of yore in all the fields and forests, in all the lakes, 

 rivers, bays, and creeks of its vast territory, are in such peril 

 of becoming speedily extinct. 



" That in a nation, every male inhabitant of which is, with 

 but rare exceptions, a hunter, and ready with the gun almost 

 beyond example, this should be the case, can be explained only 

 by the fact that, as I have said before, little is known generally 

 of the habits of game ; and that the rarest and choicest, species 

 are slaughtered inconsiderately, not perhaps wantonly, at such 

 times and in such manners, as are rapidly causing them to disap- 

 pear and become extinct. 



" That such is the case, can be proved in a few words, and 

 by reference to a few examples. The most evident, perhaps, 

 of these, is the absolute extinction of that noble bird, the Heath- 

 Hen, or Pinnated Grouse, Tetrad Cupido, on Long Island, 

 where, within the memory of our elder sportsmen, they might 

 be taken in abundance at the proper season, but where not a 

 solitary bird has been seen for years. In the pines on the south- 

 western shores of New Jersey, and in the oak -barrens of north- 

 eastern Pennsylvania, the same birds were also plentiful within 

 a few years ; but now they are already rarce aves ; and, after a 

 few more returns of the rapidly succeeding seasons, they will be 

 entirely unknown in their old-accustomed places." 



The same thing is the case, in a yet greater degree, with re- 



