THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 137 



an expense bill of railroad fares and hotel charges. That is not 

 a democratic condition of things. 



This country was originally rich with all kinds of wild game. 

 Every variety had its value. Most of them added each an ele- 

 ment of beauty, color, and life to the woods. The majority were 

 useful as food for the human race. Then comes man, blazing 

 away regardless of times and seasons. Today many of our finest 

 varieties are extinct or practically so. Man is a spendthrift and 

 a wastrel, who pollutes his rivers, burns up his forests, and de- 

 stroys the wild life that might serve and cheer him. When game 

 was abundant hunters were satisfied to get out after the real 

 vermin of the woods, the varieties that are destructive. But if 

 foxes and raccoons are exterminated in a given section today, 

 the more ignorant hunters at least will get out after song birds 

 that protect the farmers' crops from insects. 



The delegates who gathered to the conference above referred 

 to should do something more than pass resolutions. They should 

 appoint themselves a national committee to work in every state 

 for strict game laws, strict enforcement of them, and for the 

 propagation of many of the fine species of wild life that have 

 been wiped out. — Astoria Budget. 



A FLICKER'S BREAKFAST. 



Two flickers dropped to the ground in our back yard the 

 other day and went poking about among the grass tufts directly 

 beneath my window not more than six feet away. The female, 

 whom I watched closely, found and devoured seven cut-worms 

 in about that many minutes, all within a space of less than ten 

 square feet. 



Knowing the potential possibilities of seven cut-worms, a 

 bird like this flicker is worth her weight in gold. Suppose she 

 duplicates this meal several times a day, which is not improbable ; 

 it shows her to be a bird of great economic value. The progeny 

 from the cut-worms eaten during one day by the flicker would, 

 before the summer was over, reach the total of fifteen hundred 

 or enough to completely destroy a town-lot vegetable garden. 



R. B. H. 



