THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



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Editorial 



What we Owe the Sportsman 



It has become a habit with most nature lovers to seek to thwart 

 the hunter and cast stones at him on all possible occasions; and 

 undoubtedly there is much to be said against the gun in -the hands 

 of irresponsible people, especially of boys dominated by the savage 

 instinct to kill whatever they see. But we should always bear in 

 mind that the game laws were passed through the efforts of the 

 sportsmen and that it is chiefly through their influence that game 

 wardens do their work effectively. 



First of all in early times, the hunter had as much right to hunt 

 his prey as the owl had to hunt for mice or the phoebe to catch a 

 fly, for he hunted in order to provide food for himself and family. 

 This was true everywhere in America outside of cities a century 

 ago. As civilization progressed, the hunter's table was provided 

 with meat of domesticated animals and the necessity for hunting 

 disappeared; but the passion for hunting still stirred strongly in 

 the human breast and the result was hunting for pleasure, and 

 hunting creatures partly to satisfy the savage hunting instinct 

 and partly to give man a chance to show his prowess as a marks- 

 man and because a day's hunting or fishing took the hunter over 

 hill and dale and gave him a wonderful experience in nature's 

 realm, even though he may scarcely have realized it. Then 

 trouble began, — the creatures hunted did not have the natural 

 protection of the primeval forests but simply wood lots, here and 

 there among cultivated fields. The streams were polluted or the 

 forests cut away from their sources and they dried up so the fish 

 disappeared. In childhood we knew of a trout brook in which 

 the trout were plentiful which now "runs dry" during all the 

 summer months. So game of all kinds became scarce and many 

 species disappeared entirely and all were threatened with extinc- 

 tion. 



405 



