THE GAME BREEDER 



85 



Grouse are not hand-reared or bred 

 by any artificial process on the moors, 

 the owners simply rely upon beat keepers 

 who guard and protect the grouse from 

 natural and domestic enemies and who 

 mitigate the losses due to climate, fires, 

 etc.. as far as possible. 



We have a perfect demonstration in 

 Scotland indicating what will happen if 

 the checks to increase be mitigated liber- 

 ally. We have an excellent illustration 

 in Manitoba and the other grouse prov- 

 inces and states as to what must happen 

 when the checks to increase are liberally 

 multiplied. Add dogs, cats, rats, prairie 

 fires, wires, farm machinery and even a 

 little sbootmg to the ordinary checks to 

 mcrease and for good measure destroy 

 the covers which conceal the grouse from 

 their enemies and destroy also the winter 

 foods and it seems to us it does not re- 

 quire r very wise arbiter to decide why 

 the grouse vanish. We have never seen 

 any occasion for "the wonder, speculation 

 and argument" to which Mr. Turner re- 

 fers. Mr. Turner is wrong in saying 

 there is no one who would care to as- 

 sume the "risky honor" of deciding what 

 IS the matter with the American grouse. 

 We assume "risks" of this character with 

 pleasure. 



The Game Breeder always is ready to 

 decide questions which arise in its field. 

 It has an excellent stafif of practical and 

 scientific correspondents and its judg- 

 ments can be relied on. It does not con- 

 sider the present decision a "risky 

 honor." There can be no risk where the 

 proof is abundant. There is little honor 

 m discovering common sense after it has 

 been written in books. There is plenty 

 of evidence procured on the moors to 

 prove what will happen when the checks 

 to increase are reduced; there is plenty 

 of evidence in America to prove what 

 will happen if the checks to increase be 

 . multiplied. Mr. Turner, in his little 

 book, furnishes plenty of evidence to 

 •prove why the grouse vanish in Mani- 

 toba. 



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LEGISLATION BY STAMPEDE. 

 A Letter to Congress. 



We have received letters saying: Write 

 to your Congressman ! Tell him to support' 

 the Migratory Bird Treaty Bill, etc. Thou- 

 sands of such letters and telegrams have been 

 sent out to people informing them of an ef- 

 fort to save the song birds and to stop the 

 spring shooting of ducks. Most people, who 

 did as requested, had no idea what Congress 

 was asked to do. Many simply attempted to 

 stampede their Congressman without read- 

 ing the proposed bill. We have read the 

 bill and we will write to our Congressman 

 as requested. We will send this general let- 

 ter to all of the Congressmen in the hope 

 that they will defeat the bill as it is written. 

 Good statesmanship requires this. The bill 

 should be re-written. 



There can be no objection to a proper law 

 making it criminal to kill migratory song and 

 insectivorous birds at any time except when 

 they are found injurious to crops, or to a 

 law prohibiting the shooting of wild ducks 

 in the breeding season. Such a law can be 

 written in simple language and placed in the 

 statute book with other criminal enactments 

 where the people liable to arrest can find it. 



The present bill proposes to turn over to 

 certain people, game law enthusiasts, the right 

 to make criminal laws or regulations and also 

 the right to execute the laws they may make 

 as often as a new idea occurs to them. Evi- 

 dently the proposed law was not written by 

 a lawyer or by any one familiar with legal 

 principles. I have asked those who should 

 know the author, who wrote the bill ? but I 

 have had no answer to the inquiry. The 

 ideas evidently are those of "the game law 

 expert of the Biological Survey," who I am 

 informed is not a lawyer and who, I am quite 

 sure, does not understand what a criminal 

 law should be. Blackstone says criminal laws 

 should be simple, uniform, universal. They 

 certainly should be easily understood and not 

 subject to repeated changes which will re- 

 sult in people being arrested. It should not 

 be a crime to do anything in one place or 

 on one side of an imaginary line and not on 

 the other side of the line. The numerous regu- 

 lations already made, and often changed, in- 

 dicate the industry of those who believe that 

 game can be made plentiful by making and 

 executing many laws. There are scientific 

 reasons, well known to naturalists why the 

 game has vanished after the enactment of 

 thousands of laws (similar to the proposed 

 regulations) which have resulted in tens of 

 thousands qf arrests, fines and jail sentences, 

 often for doing things which have no element 

 of wrong doing and which are not crimes in 

 any country where game is an abundant food. 

 Why should the regulations for the taking 

 of migratory wild fowl in America be made 

 so strict as to prevent any sale of the desir- 

 able food when similar foods are abundant 



