206 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE 



there is an open season. And to many Americans no right 

 is dearer than the right to kill the game which by even the 

 commonest law of equity belongs, not to the shooter exclu- 

 sively, but partly to a great many other persons who don't 

 shoot at all! 



Unless we come to an "About, face!" in quick time, all our 

 big game outside the preserves is doomed to sure and quick 

 extermination. This is not an individual opinion, merely; it 

 is a fact, and a hundred thousand men know it to be such. 



In the winter of 1911-12, because the deer of Montana 

 were driven by cold and hunger out of the mountains and far 

 down into the ranchmen's valleys, eleven thousand of them 

 were ruthlessly slaughtered. The state game warden sadly 

 said that often heads of families took out as many licenses 

 as there were persons in the family, and the whole quota 

 was killed. Such people deserve to go deerless into the future; 

 but we cannot allow them to rob innocent people. 



OUR SPECIES OF BIG GAME 



The Prong-Horned Antelope, unique and wonderful, 

 will be one of the first species of North American big game to 

 become totally extinct. We may see this come to pass within 

 twenty years. They cannot be bred in protection, save in very 

 large fenced ranges. They are delicate, capricious and easily 

 upset. They die literally "at the drop of a hat." In several 

 widely separated localities they are known to be affected with 

 actinomycosis (lumpy -jaw), which in wild animals is incurable. 

 I fear that this disease will materially help to exterminate the 

 species. 



