474 



RECREA TfOJV. 



Three men are called game hogs, in the 

 March number, for killing 106 ducks. This 

 is not an inordinate number for salt water 

 shooting. An average of 33 ducks to each 

 man is not nearly so bad as 10 grouse would 

 be, in my opinion. These men might not 

 kill so many again, in a week's steady 

 shooting. All wild fowlers know the un- 

 certainty of duck shooting. 



Not a tithe of the principal species of 

 ducks found in the United States breed 

 South of the 49th parallel, wood-ducks and 

 blue wing teal excepted. 



Red heads, blue bills, canvas backs and 

 all diving ducks should have a much longer 

 open season than mallards, black ducks, 

 wood-ducks, teal, etc. 



The law cannot be too strict as regards 

 grouse and quail; and the total stoppage of 

 their sale is the best way to protect them; 

 but it would not matter much if there were 

 no law on diving ducks, as their abundance 

 or scarcity depends on a favorable or un- 

 favorable season in the far North, where 

 they breed. 



I cannot agree with Mr. Brooks when he 

 says the 3 men condemned in March Rec- 

 reation, for killing 106 ducks in one day, 

 are not game hogs. I insist, and fortu- 

 nately there are thousands of sportsmen 

 who agree with me, that 10 ducks is enough 

 for any man to kill, in any one day, no mat- 

 ter of what species, or where he may be 

 shooting. Mr. Brooks is radically wrong 

 in assuming that it is all right to kill 20, 

 30 or more ducks a day, simply because they 

 may be migratory birds. He will find few 

 readers of Recreation who will agree 

 with him on this point. 



It is not wholly a question of breeding 

 season, in the North, as to whether we may 

 have a good flight of ducks, geese, and 

 brant next fall. We shall never again have 

 any such flights of these birds as were com- 

 mon 10 to 20 years ago. Why? Because 

 they have been slaughtered, in spring and 

 fall, by game hogs, to such an extent that 

 they do not exist in any such numbers as 

 previously. If the present rate of slaughter 

 is to be kept up, there will not be a bird 

 coming from the North, 10 years hence, 

 where there are 100 even now. It is simply 

 a question of moderation in fall shooting, 

 and of abolishing spring shooting entirely, 

 that will determine whether or not we are 

 to have any migratory fowls in 1910. 



I trust Mr. Brooks, and all others who 

 are interested in this question of bird pres- 

 ervation, will read carefully the digest of 

 Mr. Hornaday's report on this subject, pub- 

 lished in another part of this issue of Rec- 

 reation. WTiat is said there of birds in 

 general, applies with equal force to migra- 

 tory water fowls, and the conclusions that 

 Mr. Hornaday draws, from the great 

 amount of information he has collected on 



this subject, are simply alarming to any 

 lover of bird life. 



Mr. Brooks is not only a high minded 

 sportsman, but he is an accomplished nat- 

 uralist, and a skilled artist, as all readers of 

 Recreation know. He does not, how- 

 ever, realize the full meaning of what he 

 says, on this subject of bird shooting. If 

 he could read the correspondence that 

 comes into this office, for 2 days in succes- 

 sion, he would never again say, or even ad- 

 mit, that it was right for any man to kill 

 30 ducks in any one day. 



MAN'S NATURAL FEAR OF SNAKES. 



R. P. FROELICH. 



On the matter of serpents I have relig- 

 iously adhered to the latter end belief of 

 Adam. I abhor the sight of one almost as 

 I do its deathlike, clammy feeling. If I am 

 collecting snakes in the tropics, I go forth 

 with much the feeling of the little boy who 

 was sent out to find a switch — he sought 

 what he feared to find. 



Of course there are some who pooh-pooh 

 the idea of snake fear; call it cowardice 

 and absolutely deny the theory of natural 

 fear of them, in man. I remember a 

 Quaker, on board the Mexican liner 

 Yucatan, who answered a professional 

 gambler's remarks on the subject, with: 

 " Yea, friend, but the devil feareth not his 

 kind." For the rest of the trip the gambler 

 kept in the saloon, and away from the boa 

 boxed up on the deck. Now, my dear 

 reader, because you twine a garter snake 

 round your neck and keep a black snake in 

 the recesses of your shirt bosom, do not 

 take this little story too much to heart. 

 You have not the opportunity of judging 

 as to whether you fear or not. A little 

 harmless snake is a totally different object 

 from an 18 foot boa, shaking and twisting 

 in wrath and stony eyed hate, as is gen- 

 erally the case when you suddenly come on 

 him in the brush. This is a true descend- 

 ant of the " Wicked One " that the heel of 

 man should bruise. I have seen a strong 

 vigorous man — a naturalist — who at his 

 home in Massachusetts, had made a study 

 of the snakes of that region, taken with 

 nausea when I broke the back of a 19 foot 

 boa, with a rifle ball. Both of us were on 

 horseback and probably 50 feet away. The 

 hissing, tortuous, twisting, all but shriek- 

 ing mass of twitching coils, he said re- 

 minded him of a scene in a possible here- 

 after. 



On the hottest day in the tropics you may 

 enjoy a chill, sudden and decisive, bycom- 

 ing on that concentration of animosity — a 

 serpent. Possibly it would occur to you as 

 to me: " Now the serpent was more subtile 

 than any beast of the field." 



I have never had snakes in my boots and 

 certainly have no use for these or the other 

 kind. 



