XX11 



RECREATION. 



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A BOY SAYS THINGS. 



Ruffed grouse and prairie chickens were 

 more plentiful last season than for the past 

 2 or 3 years. 



We have a game hog in this city. 

 He considers himself a true sports- 

 man, and a game protector. He is a mem- 

 ber of the L. A. S. and a reader of Recre- 

 ation, Mr. Post. He keeps 2 or 3 

 dogs, and roasts the farmers' boys ; says 

 they are the ones that are slaughtering the 

 birds. When he goes hunting he has 

 a pack of dogs. This I do not believe in. 

 The city dudes do the slaughtering. Leave 

 the poor farmers' boys alone. I like out- 

 door sports as well as any. 



Last season I got 200 to 300 birds, and 

 was well satisfied. I never hunted with a 

 dog. Shipping birds should be prohibited, 

 or in a few years we shall have no use for 

 our guns. Birds should never be hunt- 

 ed with dogs. Give the birds a chance. 

 I am too fond of shooting to divide the 

 sport with a dog. 



Sam Thompson, Barron, Wis. 



If you and other boys and men keep 

 on hogging birds at the rate of 200 to 300 

 a year they will soon be extinct, dogs or 

 no dogs. A man or a boy may wear 

 bristles whether he owns a dog or not. — 

 Editor. 



THE FOLLY OF SPRING SHOOTING. 



Watertown, N. Y. 

 Editor Recreation : 



I am one of the many sportsmen who be- 

 lieve that the spring shooting of wild fowl 

 is wrong, and for 15 years I have done no 

 spring shooting. I like to hunt as well as 

 any man can, and my favorite sport is wild- 

 fowling; but it is no pleasure for me to kill 

 any game bird during the mating or breed- 

 ing season. The present law regarding 

 wildfowl in this State is a disgrace to the 

 sportsmen who, by their selfishness or in- 

 difference, permit such a law to exist. 



A careful inquiry recently made by the 

 New York Zoological Society reveals this 

 startling fact: The decrease in wild wa- 

 terfowl and shore birds has been over 50 

 per cent, in the past 15 years. During my 

 lifetime I have seen the wild pigeon become 

 practically extinct. And now the wildfowl 

 are rapidly approaching the same end. 

 Why not stop this merciless slaughter of 

 mated birds in the spring before it is too 

 late? «, 



Many sportsmen in this State believe that 

 if the wildfowl were unmolested in the 

 spring, large numbers of them would stay 

 with us and breed, giving us good shooting 

 in the early fall, when it is a pleasure to 

 hunt. Years ago wildfowl bred in this 

 State in countless thousands. Why do they 

 not now? Because at every island, 

 every point, every feeding place, lake and 

 creek, the spring shooter is waiting to kill 

 or drive them from our waters. 



Our law permits the killing of wildfowl 

 until May 1. Before that date many birds 

 should have begun their nesting. Our 

 sportsmen are exceedingly short sighted 

 in this matter. The lovers of duck 

 shooting have not given this ques- 

 tion proper consideration. We drive 

 the birds into Canad to breed ; there they 

 are protected from the spring shooter un- 

 til they are forced to leave by the freezing 

 of the water. As the waters close here at 

 nearly the same time, and as the distance to 

 the coast is so short, I do not believe one 

 bird in a thousand stops here on the fall 

 flight. We are, in fact, driving the birds, 

 from this State into Canada in the spring 

 to breed young for the coast and Southern 

 shooters. The spring shooter says they 

 would not breed in this State : a great many 

 others think they would. Why not pass a 

 law next winter prohibiting spring shooting 

 of wildfowl in New York for 5 years, and 

 prove which side is right? The time has 

 come when the sale of game, and the spring 

 shooting of water birds, should be prohib- 

 ited, if we would save our diminished sup- 

 ply of game from early extermination. 



Minnesota has stopped spring shooting; 

 why should not great New York join hands 

 with her in true sportsmanship? 



W. H. Tallett, 

 Prest. Jefferson Co. Sportsmen's Ass'n. 



