CONCLUSION. 



In view of all our experience it is clear that Amer- 

 ican sportsmen cannot continue to kill off their game 

 and still to have their covers full of birds. I believe 

 that a time will come when there will be good shooting 

 in many parts of the country, but this will not be until 

 gunners have been taught the lesson of self-control. 

 Methods must be devised for restocking our fields and 

 woods, and the birds put out must have an opportunity 

 to live and to reproduce their kind. This means better 

 enforcement of law, shorter open-seasons and a bag 

 limit. As conditions precedent to good shooting, must 

 come also game refuges and the private preserve. If 

 sportsmen long ago had been wise enough to demand 

 from the legislatures the establishment of game refuges, 

 we should now have public preserves which might have 

 been large enough for anyone. Instead of demanding 

 this, gunners often grumbled bitterly when land own- 

 ers posted their fields and declined to allow everyone 

 to run over their land, tear down their fences and 

 shoot their domestic fowls, and even their animals. 



The private preserve has come to stay, and it is a 

 good thing for gunners at large that it has come. 

 What the general public should now demand is game 

 refuges public preserves where the birds may in- 

 crease and from which they will certainly scatter out 



555 



