1-94- AMERICAN GAME. 



out any exception, the sport would be enormous ; the 

 birds at that season are in full vigor, in complete plu- 

 mage, in the perfection of condition for the table, and 

 are so strong on the wing, so active and so swift, that no 

 one could for a moment imagine them to be the same 

 with the miserable, puny, half-fledged younglings, which 

 any bungling boy can butcher as he pleases, with the 

 most miserable apparatus, and without almost as well as 

 with a dog, during the dog-days of July. 



The weather is, moreover, cool and pleasant, and in 

 every way well-suited to the sport at this season ; dogs 

 have a chance to do their work handsomely and well, 

 and the sportsman can do his' work, too, as he ought to 

 do it, like a man, walking at his proper rate, unmolested 

 by mosquitoes, and without feeling the salt perspiration 

 streaming into his eyes, until he can hardly brook the 

 pain. 



But no such hope existing as that state legislatures, 

 dependent, not on rational but on brute opinion, should 

 condescend to hear or listen to common sense, on 

 matters such as game laws, are we, or are we not, to 

 abandon our plan, to sacrifice our knowledge and 

 enlightened views on this subject to obstinate ignorance ; 

 or shall we not take the better part, and decide, accord- 

 ing to Minerva's lesson in Tennyson's magnificent 

 ^Enone, 



. . . For that right is right to follow right 

 Where wisdom is the scorn of consequence. 



