580 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



should hunt together. Where there are more than two 

 shooting over the same dog, or pair of dogs, it causes con- 

 fusion to the hunters, excites the dogs, and smacks too 

 strongly of game extermination. 



It would be impossible to live up to the rules of field 

 etiquette were we to indulge in club-hunts. They ought 

 not to be called club-hunts, but, rather, extermination 

 hunts; for this is the effect, although not primarily the 

 object of them. I am opposed to the congregating of indi- 

 viduals for the purpose of choosing sides, then hunting and 

 declaring the winners on a score of, points, on game of any 

 kind. No matter how honest a man' s intentions are, if he 

 allows himself to join these destructive forces, he lowers 

 himself to their level, and in his anxiety that his side shall 

 win, may stoop to secure game by unsportsmanlike methods. 



Let him see a covey of quails on the ground, and he is 

 extremely liable to forget for the moment his love of legiti- 

 mate sport, his desire to give each bird a chance for its life, 

 and to fire at the covey. He picks up the result of his pot- 

 shot, looks guiltily around, then secretly congratulates 

 himself on the number of "points" gained. When a man 

 allows the element of profit to enter into the day' s hunt, 

 avarice, greed, and the desire for a big bag cloud the mind, 

 dull the conscience and the beauties of Nature, and the 

 proper love for field sports are for the time forgotten — the 

 hunter is converted into a mercenary creature who deserves 

 the contempt of honorable sportsmen. The same precepts 

 and principles here declared as to the shooting of feathered 

 game, apply with equal force to the hunting of Big Game 

 or the taking of fish. 



Our game, both large and small, is fast disappearing, 

 and our attention should at all times be directed to its pres- 

 ervation. The true sportsman will limit himself to a 

 decent-sized bag, whether the law of the State wherein he 

 shoots requires this or not; and when he has killed sufficient 

 for himself and friends, will cease to shoot, even though 

 there be whole coveys of birds, or whole herds of Elk or 

 Deer, still in sight. 



