Song Birds and Water Fowl 



not left in peace ; for certain pestilent fellows, 

 thinking them excellent objects for target prac- 

 tice, came thither, and destroyed large num- 

 bers from time to time, one person boasting 

 of having shot three hundred. As such a large 

 quantity could be of no possible use to anyone, 

 and as the swamp was often so impassable from 

 water that many of them could only have been 

 reached with great difficulty after being shot, it 

 resulted that scores and perhaps hundreds of 

 the poor victims were left to die a lingering 

 death on the ground. A local ornithologist, 

 Mr. L. H. West, indignant at this barbarity, 

 induced the proprietor of the swamp to pro- 

 hibit any further shooting ; and Mr. West, who 

 lives near by, is a dangerous individual for any 

 would-be depredator to encounter. The out- 

 look is, therefore, very promising that they 

 will suffer no more molestation. It is perfectly 

 easy to understand the excitement of shooting 

 a small and agile bird when on the wing, for it 

 is the best evidence of skill in marksmanship. 

 But there is about as much exhilaration in kill- 

 ing a large heron, perching quietly in a tree, 

 as there would be in going into a pasture and 

 shooting down a cow. The inclination to such 

 butchery, and to the wholesale destruction of 

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