RECREATION. 



427 



Let conscientious sportsmen work for 

 game protection in mid-winter and mid- 

 summer, and banish that old worn out 

 theory that the game laws cannot be en- 

 forced ; but adopt the motto that they 

 must and shall be enforced. 



Sometimes gun clubs have made some 

 pretensions ©f enforcing the game 

 laws. 



They have in the club's constitution, 

 beside the trap shooting clause, the 

 gauzy elaboration, "and to protect the 

 game and fish of the State." 



It reads well, but amounts to about as 

 much towards actually carrying out the 

 game and fish protection idea as toward 

 making the sun shine. 



Trap shooting and game protection 

 will not mix. There is a strong, insur- 

 mountable barbed wire fence between 

 them. One of the objects must suffer, 

 and you can rest assured it will not be 

 the trap shooting department, 



The evidence on this point is full 

 and explicit. The club's constitution 

 alluding to the preservation of game and 

 fish sounds well to those who sail under 

 false colors ; but smashing targets, and 

 not trying to solve the game protection 

 problem, is their motto. Every citizen 

 should feel that his responsibility in re- 



gard to game protection begins the 

 moment he declares himself a sports- 

 man, and does not end till the battle is 

 over. That is a guaranty, that the name 

 " sportsman " is not a misnomer. 



There comes a time to most men, in 

 the course of their lives, when they have 

 to choose between two diverging lines 

 of action, for or against the enforcement 

 of the game law, and they should re- 

 member that the illegal shooters are too 

 strong to laugh at or to play with. 



The duty of the sportsman lies in 

 forcing upon the public the realization 

 of the vital fact that all infractions of the 

 game laws will be punished. Any other 

 course shows the grossest neglect of 

 their duties. There can be no half-way 

 position on this question. 



Why allow the game to be extermi- 

 nated illegally through the carelessness 

 or incompetency of others ? The need 

 of work in the interests of game pro- 

 tection covers a multitude of coniin- 

 gencies not necessary to mention. 



The sportsman should remember that 

 his mission on earth is not simply to 

 breathe. 



He should roll up his sleeves and see 

 that the game laws are respected and 

 lived up to by friends and foes. 



The angler now, with rod and reel, 



Sits silent, as still as death, 

 And the frantic struggles of fish and eel 



He watches with baited breath. 



— Albany Times-Union. 



