29fj KAKDOM THOUGHTS OX HUNTING. 



home, to better their fortunes in this land, this 

 seems to be the sorest and best remembered of their 

 griefs transportation, for killing a hare or a par- 

 tridge ! The preservation of game is thus associ- 

 ated, in the popular mind, with ideas of aristocracy 

 peculiar privileges to the rich, and oppression 

 toward the poor ! What wonder, then, that men, 

 forgetful of the future, surrendering themselves to 

 the present, mingle with the throng of destructives 

 who seem bent on the extermination of the game ; 

 rather than attempt the difficult, and unpopular, 

 and thankless office of conservators ! 



I think there will be a reform in this matter 

 not that I shall witness it. It must be the work of 

 time. "When the game shall have been so killed 

 off, that the mass of the people shall have no interest 

 in hunting their neighbors' grounds the law will 

 be reformed ; and when that same time arrives, the 

 juries will have no interest in construing away the 

 law. So that we may yet hope to see the time when 

 men may, under the sanction of the law, and with- 

 out offence, or imputation of ari'stocracy, preserve 

 the game from extermination and perpetuate, in 

 so doing, the healthful, generous, and noble divei- 

 sion of hunting. 



THE 



