SPRING SHOOTING 



robins and bluebirds sang May songs, 

 those were very good shots you made, 

 killing ten snipe straight and clean, and 

 — they were very bad shots. For in 

 November the ten might have been four 

 times ten fat and lusty, lazy fellows, 

 boring the oozy margins of these same 

 pools where the frogs are croaking and 

 the toads are singing to-day. 



" Well, it 's a long time to wait from 

 November till the earth ripefis and 

 browns to autumn again. Life is short 

 and shooting days are few at most. Let 

 us shoot our goose while we may, though 

 she would lay a golden egg by and by." 



Farmers do not kill their breeding 

 ewes in March, nor butcher cows that 

 are to calve in a month ; it does not pay. 

 Why should sportsmen be less provident 

 of the stock they prize so dearly ; stock 

 that has so few care-takers, so many 

 enemies ? Certainly, it does not pay in 

 the long run. 



42 



