THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF GAME 73 



matter to make game so abundant that some of it can be 

 spared to feed an occasional enemy. 



There is no other cause for the decrease of the wild 

 fowl, which is of more importance to American sports- 

 men than their destruction by vermin, excepting, of 

 course, the draining of the ponds and marshes, which 

 amounts to a total annihilation in the places which are 

 drained. 



The relation of the game to its natural enemies and 

 the laws which govern nature's balance are well under- 

 stood by game preservers. Game preserving is highly 

 scientific. Without it evidently it is certain, in America, 

 that we cannot have good shooting save in the more un- 

 settled regions. When we undertake it there can be no 

 doubt that the game can be kept abundant in the most 

 densely populated regions, although thousands of birds 

 be shot every year. This has been proven in England 

 everywhere and in many places in the United States 

 where the* experiment has been tried.* 



All forms of life, it is well known, tend to increase 

 with such great rapidity that a very few of any species 

 soon would increase so as to overrun the earth were it 

 not for the many natural checks to their increase. Dar- 

 win says: "Lighten any check, mitigate the destruction 

 ever so little and the number of the species will almost 

 instantaneously increase to any amount." 



The converse of Darwin's proposition equally is true. 

 When we add to the checks to the increase of game 



*The best examples of game abundance on the upland are the quail 

 preserves of North Carolina and the pheasant preserves of New Eng- 

 land, New York, New Jersey, etc. There are a number of wild duck 

 preserves in New England, New York and New Jersey, where wild fowl 

 have been restored and made abundant. 



