JULY DAYS 



does it profit us to kill merely for the 

 sake of killing, and have to show there- 

 for but a beggarly account of bones and 

 feathers ? Are there not grouse and 

 quail and woodcock waiting for us, and 

 while we wait for them can we not con- 

 tent ourselves with indolent angling by 

 shaded streams in these melting days 

 of July rather than contribute the blaze 

 and smoke of gunpowder to the heat and 

 murkiness of midsummer? If we must 

 shed blood let us tap the cool veins of 

 the fishes, not the hot arteries of brood- 

 ing mother birds and their fledgelings. 

 97 



