118 
illustrated with several duck hog pictures, 
from the text of which I quote: 
For a full week now, the season has been open. Men 
have been returning to town with sufficient ducks to supply 
themselves and th¢ir friends, and even the markets with 
enough and tospare. Advices from the south promise even 
better sport later. 
As the tyro gazes or the photographs that his more adept 
and lucky friends have had taken of themselves, loaded 
down and almost completely concealed with strings of 
ducks purporting to be the results of a single day’s work, 
he naturally wants to know how itisdone. . . -. 
The duck shooting season in Colorado lasts from Septem- 
ber te May. Only 4, and at most 5 months of that time are 
really available for shooting; for the migration of the birds 
lasts but little more than 2 months each way. All varieties 
of ducks remain in this vicinity all the summer, and one or 
2 kinds remain all winter. For this reason a movement is 
now on foot to have the season extended on the spring end. 
Two bills with this in view are now pending in the Senate. 
Senate bill No. 148 provides for April 15 as the closing 
day of the season. Under this bill licensing of guns, guides 
and parks is introduced. Bill No. 492, called the ‘‘ Game 
Hog bill” calls for the extension of the season, without an 
reference to licensing. The present bills provide for a limit 
of so birds to each man in the party. 
Sail in, Denverites! Kill off all the 
ducks as soon as possible. Don’t let one 
go North to nest! Then when they are ex- 
tinct you can turn your attention to clay 
pigeons.—EDITor. 

THE WORMWOOD IN THE CUP. 
The issue of Forest and Stream for 
June oth, devotes a page and one-third to 
an elaborately prepared roast of G. O. 
Shields, because of certain alligators, 
birds, and fishes killed by him in Florida 
20 years ago! It harks far back to the 
days when there was game a-plenty, and 
the need of sparing life was apparent to 
no hunter. It was a long way to go for a 
grievance; and apparently it is De Soto’s 
turn next. 
Through 4 broad, and sometimes val- 
uable columns, a writer with only cour- 
age enough to write ““Didymus’” (from 
“didy,’— a clout, and “mus,” a mouse— 
clouted mouse) at the end of his contri- 
bution, depicts Coquina as the most 
bloodthirsty monster onearth,—the type of 
the lowest degenerate among sportsmen. 
On the editorial page, and to the extent 
of another column—by the same writer 
but pitched in a more top-lofty key—the 
editor of RECREATION is held up some 
more as a horrible example. 
I remember that until RECREATION was 
started, the much-reviled G. O. Shields, 
now a devil incarnate among game (ac- 
cording to the Clouted Mouse) was a lib- 
eral and always w Icome contributor to 
the columns of Forest and Stream. What 
has happened to cause such copious purg- 
ing on the part of the dwellers in the 
stone palace of sleep at 346 Broadway, 
who shape the waning destiny of Forest 
and Stream? 
RECREATION. 
The causes of the many nasty flings 
flung at G. O. Shields, through F. and S., 
during the last 3 years, are not far to 
seek. They are as follows: 
1. RECREATION, with 65,000 circulation. 
2. The League of American Sportsmen, 
with 2,000 members, sans F. and S. 
3. Circulation of Forest and Stream 
about 8,000! 
The last figure is probably too high. 
Two years ago, when an office-boy stole 
the F. and S. subscription list and offered 
it as a present to Mr. Shields, it con- 
tained only about 3,500 names! Mr. 
Shields immediately restored the list to 
Mr. Grinnell, and has his grateful ac- 
knowledgement, but the boy had “fig- 
I grant,—to please the virtuous (?) 
Didymus, and for the sake of argument 
—that 25 years ago, when Coquina was 
young and thoughtless, and game swarm- 
ed about him, he may have killed more 
than he should. In those days, where 
is the hunter who did not? But, when 
the disappearance of game became ap- 
parent, G. O. Shields was one of the first 
American sportsmen to lay aside his rifle, 
and become a game protector. Can G. B. 
Grinnell say as much? 
But the president of 
American Sportsmen needs no defense. 
Let Didymus, Grinnell and Reynolds con- 
tinue to gnaw the ReEcREATION file in 
their waking intervals, and _ fret their 
hearts out in sheer envy of the success 
of the one lone man at 19 East 24th St. 
Selah. 
med it pre 

AS TO SPRING SHOOTING, 
Des Moines, Ia. 
Editor RECREATION: 
The subject of abolishing spring shoot- 
ing of game birds has been much discuss- 
ed among sportsmen for many years. 
Advocates of the measure claim such 
shooting is wrong in principle; that birds 
in the spring should be permitted to go 
unmolested to their nesting grounds; and 
as a result there will be more birds for 
fall shooting. 
They say no sensible man would kill 
one-half his flock of fowls in the spring 
just before nesting season. We, on the 
other side, claim it makes no difference 
whether the man kills one-half his flock in 
the spring or in the previous fall. A bird 
killed in the fall can have no family next 
spring, which is the same as if killed in 
the spring. 
Spring shooting is destructive to game 
because it increases the open season, Of, | 
lengthens the time during which game 
the League of 
4 
‘ 
bE 

