FREE FOR THE DAY. 



73 



ducks be induced to return ? They can never 

 prove an obstruction to navigation, so why 

 should legislation on this point be, as at present, 

 a mere farce ? The day will never come, per- 

 haps, when people who prefer a living to a dead 

 bird will be acknowledged as having a claim to 

 the wild life that would appear to be no man's 

 peculiar property. By an overwhelming majority, 

 mankind hold, if a creature is good to eat, it 

 must be killed. But the insignificant minority 

 still feel they have a claim. I would walk twenty 

 miles to see a wild swan on the Delaware ; my 

 neighbor would walk forty if sure of shooting it. 



Water birds are safe on the Back Bay in 

 Boston, and seem to know it. I have watched 

 them with delight, morning after morning, while 

 dressing; but here, miles from town, you may 

 pass a week and see no trace of even a duck. 

 A few come and go, but there are men with 

 guns lying in wait, both day and night. Time 

 was when there were wild fowl and to spare 

 not so now ; and the day is quickly coming when 

 geese even will rank with the great auk and the 

 dodo. 



It is probably not difficult to prove that a re- 

 turn ramble is less suggestive, even if more ob- 

 jects cross our path than when we were outward 

 bound. At the close of a long day, we are, with- 

 out suspecting it, brain-weary, as well as physi- 



