A LOOK BACKWARD 513 



ing spirit from their sires, but no pressing need drove 

 them to the field. They shot for pleasure wild 

 fowl and game birds when these were to be had, but if 

 not these, too often they destroyed in their ignorance 

 tiny songbirds which were their best friends. 



Many a man has seen with his own eyes the expul- 

 sion of the rifle by the shotgun from more than one 

 section of the land. Little more than a generation ago 

 the shotgun was scarcely known in central Nebraska. 

 Then it was necessary on occasion to fight off 

 Sioux or Cheyennes or Arapahoes, while the buffalo, 

 elk, deer and antelope were needed for food. The 

 years have rolled by ; the riffle has disappeared. Either 

 it went westward to the mountains with its owner, or, 

 rusty and dirty, it stands to-day neglected in a corner 

 of the garret. All the young men and boys have shot- 

 guns, and in the season the geese that visit the river 

 bottoms, the ducks of the sloughs, the prairie chickens 

 on the upland and the quail in the tow-heads are con- 

 stantly pursued. 



So, in the settling up of a country the weapon adapts 

 itself to the game to be killed. As long as large mam- 

 mals are abundant the rifle holds its own, but when 

 these are gone it must give place to the weapon of 

 shorter range. 



It was not until toward the middle of the nineteenth 

 century that the birds of the United States began to be 

 shot for sport. Before this the markets offered induce- 

 ments to the thoughtless or the greedy to destroy birds 

 with great recklessness. Game birds were taken in nets, 



