CANADIAN FORE ST RY ASSOCIATION . 93 



in this direction which approaches that oftered by the pursuit of fish or 

 game. A man may sleep for hours and yet awaken unrefreshed; dreams, 

 of business cares arid business worries having marred his slumbers and de- 

 barred the recuperation of his wearied brain; but the man is an undesirable 

 rarity who can retain in his mind the scintilla of a thought of business or 

 any other worry when he views the sudden crouch of his spaniel, the rigid 

 tail and crooked foreleg of his pointer, or when he feels the sudden tug 

 and hears the soul-entrancing whirr of his winch as a good-sized silvery 

 beauty makes a dash in its efforts to regain its freedom. I never heard of 

 but one such man. He was offered the loan of a rod and line and invited 

 to take part in a day's salmon fishing in the North of England. When 

 the day came, he happened to hook a fish, and as it carried the fly to the 

 bottom of the river, his host exclaimed, "He is a fine fish and you have got 

 him well hooked. He is sure to give you some glorious sport." The skin- 

 Hint's reply was symbolical of the man. "I wish," said he, "that my two 

 and sixpenny fly was well out of his mouth." 



The old maxim, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," is as 

 true of manhood as it is of youth. In the Province to which I have the 

 honor to belong, 1 have known prominent business men, who were orna- 

 ments as well as boons to the community, droop and fade into untimely 

 graves on account of their neglect to take the necessary recreation which 

 would have steeped their overworked brains in entire forgetfulness of 

 business, and have prolonged their career of usefulness. Maybe the 

 scarcity of fish and game at the time was the reason that the recuperating 

 pleasures of the chase failed to allure them into the realms where the 

 powers of Nature hold untrammelled sway, and where each step would 

 have brought them an accession of health and vigour, as well as an exten- 

 sion of their lease of life. 



There was an appalling decrease in the amount of fish and game, in the 

 Province of Prince Edward Island, every year until 1905. In that year 

 the people awoke to the peril staring them in the face and to the necessity 

 of taking immediate steps to prevent the total extinction of such a valuable 

 asset of the Province. This decrease, in my humble opinion, was largely 

 due to the reckless, I might almost say the iniquitous, destruction of the 

 trees and shrubs, which had year after year been persisted in, augmented 

 as it was by the numerous forest fires which, for the most part, were the 

 result of carelessness, not to use a harsher term. 



Every ornithologist, every sportsman, knows quite well that the ruffled 

 grouse, or partridges as they are frequently termed, delight to roam on 

 well shaded, damp, soft, moss-carpeted ground, and that they are usually 

 found in swamps, near brooks and springs, or on the borders of well- 

 wooded ponds and rivers. It is also well known that woodcock and snipe 

 can only feed in soft, moist soil, into which they can easily probe with their 

 long bills for their fare of earthworms and larva?. 



In the good old days, when the fish and game were very plentiful, the 

 water of the rivers and stream was cool and clear, and the streams them- 

 selves were shaded by belts of beautiful trees; bushes and shrubs, growing 

 along the banks keeping the brooks cool and preventing the streams, as 



