BULLETIN NUMBER FIVE 211 



This, men of the West, is the logical outcome of our fool- 

 ish and abusive treatment of the hunting privilege. As 

 blind devotees of the dangerous fetish called "Personal Lib- 

 erty" we undertake to give every "citizen" — and many, 

 many aliens also — good, bad and worse — all the free shoot- 

 ing they want, for a paltry one-dollar resident license an- 

 nually ! We turn millions of guns loose on the remnant of 

 game and near-game; we maintain a corporal's guard of 

 game wardens to watch that huge army of 3,000,000 gun- 

 ners, and we calmly stand or sit by while our finest wild 

 birds and mammals are exterminated. 



Our republican form of government is a deadly curse to 

 our best wild life. There are one thousand times too many 

 men who want to kill what they want, when and where they 

 want it ; and any man who tries too hard to preserve legiti- 

 mate sport with the gun from becoming extinct is finally 

 spoken of as "the bitterest enemy of sportsmen." 



The 6-year medicine will seem bitter; but if the case is 

 to be cured it must be swallowed now ! Far be it from me 

 to prescribe trivial measures, for a quarter-way cure. Don't 

 waste valuable time talking about "shortening the bag lim- 

 it," — unless you cut it down to zero. For vanishing game 

 all bag "limits" are a fraud, a delusion and a snare. I think 

 they never yet have saved a game bird species, and that they 

 never will ! 



And do not be cajoled or deceived by plausible talk about 

 "shortening the open season" as a real means of saving and 

 bringing back the grouse. That, also, is a delusion, in every 

 case of the kind that has come before us. Just now the sage 

 grouse can not stand any open season! 



Secretary John Sherman said : "The way to resume specie 

 payments is to resume!" He was correct. The way to save 

 and bring back the sage grouse is by stopping everyone 

 from killing them, for a number of years. Even with a 

 6-year close season, it will be hard enough for them to come 

 back, — which is what we all wish to see. The heath hen 

 failed to do it; in all localities save one, where the 21 sur- 



