Nothing so Silly as a Goose 91 



then occasionally the wrath of Canada would float 

 along the passing shadow of something that was, 

 and is not. 



The Glenn County Club, in California, enter- 

 tained two sportsmen? God save the mark 

 for a day's shooting. They went out where a 

 wire fence held captive Canadian Geese, used as 

 living decoys. On each side were "rifle-pits" for 

 the killers not hunters and back of them an- 

 other for the "guide," who could imitate the 

 "honk" of a Wild Goose. In one hour, with their 

 automatic shotguns, they had used up all their 

 ammunition and, the account says, had to their 

 credit let us say discredit *wo hundred and 

 eighteen dead birds. They went back in the 

 afternoon and killed enough more to bring the 

 number of the slaughtered up to four hundred 

 and fifty. This in America, in the name of Sport ; 

 we the people who are "the heirs of all the ages 

 in the foremost ranks of Time" still capable of 

 a thing like that, and what is even more hideous, 

 bragging over it and calling it glorious. No pair 

 of crawling reptiles, or fierce, four-footed beasts, 

 in the darkest jungle that ever existed in the re- 

 motest parts of this earth, have equaled this de- 

 struction of harmless creatures, from a mere lust 

 to kill. Establish their right to be called "Pot- 

 hunters" and you honor them, for comparatively, 



