162 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



Slowly, very slowly, wise sportsmen are awakening to a 

 realization of the fact that as conditions now exist, nothing 

 but stern, drastic and far-reaching measures can save on a 

 continuing basis the upland game birds and deer of the 

 United States. But many of them linger shivering on the 

 brink, dreading to take the plunge ; and so the game is rush- 

 ing down the toboggan slide, into Oblivion. 



To some it may seem a curious thing that any sportsman 

 father should not be willing and anxious to save some shoot- 

 ing, for his son. But let us wonder no longer. There are, 

 evidently, hundreds of thousands of fathers who do not care 

 a continental whether their boys have any shooting or not, 

 and whose first and last desire is to go on shooting — "ac- 

 cording to LAW" — until the last bird and the last deer is 

 dead. 



And after all, why should we care about their sons, and 

 their rights to the game? Game-hog fathers beget and 

 bring up game-hog sons; and you cannot change the spots 

 on a leopard merely by protecting his rights. 



If the sportsmen of the various states of our nation will 

 not ask or permit their legislatures to pass laws preserving 

 their upland game birds and deer, and if the other people 

 of the various states concerned are asleep, or indifferent, 

 then the local state game will be exterminated. The white- 

 tailed deer and elk can be brought back, but the upland 

 game birds NEVER can be; and for the loss of such species 

 as are exterminated, THE SPORTSMEN of the states con- 

 cerned ivill be the men most to blame. 



They can save their local game, on a continuing basis, 

 if they will! 



