274 BIRDS IN THEIR RELATIONS TO MAN. 



must ascribe the enormous quantities of game-birds that are 

 annually consumed by people who never saw one alive. At 

 his call skilled huntsmen took the field, employing every means 

 ingenuity could suggest to increase the catch. Nets, snares, 

 traps, decoys, and ponderous guns were in constant use. For 

 years professional hunters slaughtered, dealers handled, and 

 gluttons gobbled without reason or restraint. There could be 

 but one result : wild fowl have become scarce. Gunners no 

 longer return at night with more birds than they can carry ; 

 not seldom they come in empty-handed. But the millionaire 

 makes up the shortage by paying higher prices. When a pair 

 of canvas-backs bring a five-dollar note there is still money in 

 shooting ducks. 



The same lavish fancy that prompts a rich gourmand to buy 

 high-priced ducks prompts him to spend an equal sum for a 

 box of strawberries out of season. The ducks are actually 

 not finer than others of less repute ; the berries are not sweeter 

 nor better-flavored than those he buys in spring at ten cents a 

 box. His purchases are made without regard either to cost or 

 intrinsic worth. He has reached a point where gratification 

 outweighs money. But let us see the difference to us whether 

 he spends it for berries or for ducks. When he buys berries 

 he pays the gardener a special price for a special kind of skill 

 and for maintaining an expensive establishment a fair recom- 

 pense. The fruit is as truly the sole property of the horti- 

 culturist as is the money the sole property of the purchaser. 

 The transaction is legitimate. Now as to ducks. The gunner 

 receives pay for skill and toil, as in the other case ; but the 

 birds are his only by an acquisition not wholly above question. 

 He has spent nothing on their nurture. He disposes of what 

 we have as clear a title to as he if we would but make it good 

 by scouring the marshes. Such a title may not be very strong, 

 but it has a certain validity nevertheless. As a democratic 

 people, there is but one light in which we can regard game, — 

 that is, as public property. If there were an inexhaustible 



