GAME PRESERVATION 305 



spontaneous and democratic movement in favour of 

 State protection of game. Its intensely popular and 

 local character is shown by the fact that every separate 

 State is now enforcing existing Game Laws or adding to 

 their number. Dakota, Illinois, Tennessee, New York, 

 Maine, Vermont, and many others, are engaged in 

 revising or adding to these laws, which are enforced 

 not by private persons, but by State gamekeepers. In 

 Maine, for instance, though so near to the great cities 

 of the East, sportsmen are expected to use the services 

 of licensed guides, who are really State ' gillies.' Strict 

 close time is enforced, and these men have the protection 

 of game and fish mainly in their control throughout the 

 territory. But the State ' game warden ' is also a 

 recognised institution. His exploits in catching 

 poachers are chronicled with enthusiasm in the Press, 

 in a very different tone to that often adopted when 

 poachers are summoned before British magistrates. 

 Under the heading of 'Arrests in Montana,' we find 

 that ' a partial check has been given to the elk butchers ' 

 by summary arrests ; that wholesale skin-hunters' camps 

 have been raided by the constables, and the offenders 

 put in gaol ; and that ' warrants are out for two 

 prominent citizens,' no less personages than a State 

 senator and a schoolmaster. Endless complaints, in- 

 formations, and prosecutions for killing deer in close 

 time, occupy the columns of the local papers. If half 



20 



