The Wild-Fowlers 157 



market shooter prohibit the sale of game. 

 With these laws in full force our migra- 

 tory game birds would be spared the fate 

 of the wild pigeon, and the gentle sports- 

 man's rural pleasures would be preserved 

 forever, for the man of the wing gun of 

 to-day is a gentleman and is too wise to 

 the growing scarcity of his game to wan- 

 tonly take more birds than an honest out- 

 ing entitles him to. I don't believe any 

 sportsman ever takes more than a gentle 

 share of game, bird, quadruped, or fish, 

 though there are indifferent shooters and 

 fishermen who judge their day by the 

 size of their creel or game-bag, but they 

 are not sportsmen and have no more right 

 to the title than the marketman and plu- 

 mage gatherer should be termed sports- 

 man. The fellow who shoots or fishes for 

 mere quantity is a bungler, a rowdy, and 

 a dangerous person, no matter what his 

 reason may be that he kills for the mar- 

 ket, that he gathers feathers for the 

 woman's hat, or that he must display a 



