522 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



property of the owner of the land; while in the 

 United States up to within a few years the game has 

 been considered the property of whomsoever might re- 

 duce it to possession. 



On one side of the water are large estates to which 

 the public is not admitted, while game birds are arti- 

 ficially reared and carefully protected to prevent de- 

 struction by natural enemies, as well as by poachers. 

 The result of this is that at the end of a season a crop 

 of game is harvested and sold. In the United States are 

 a series of small land holdings, over which until within 

 a very short time, everyone, man or boy, citizen or alien, 

 was at liberty to roam freely and to destroy at will ; the 

 game is left to reproduce itself, is exposed to attacks by 

 its natural enemies as well as by all human beings who 

 may wish to take it, and is only protected by laws 

 which exist on the statute books, but are inefficiently 

 enforced. Here each gunner wishes to shoot, and in 

 practice may shoot, from daylight to dark, seven days 

 in the week. Add to this that a large portion of the 

 public here is accustomed to the use of firearms, and 

 that we have the best guns and ammunition in the 

 world, and it is not difficult to see why game is very 

 scarce in most sections of North America. 



In the thickly settled districts of the Eastern and 

 Middle States matters have gone so far that it is diffi- 

 cult to suggest a means by which a stock of birds for 

 field shooting may again be obtained, except the one 

 means, which gunners will adopt last of all, the practice 

 of self-control in their shooting. One result of this 



