FROM THE GAME MELDS. 



The man who quits when he gets enough, with plenty of game still in sight, is a real sportsman. 



BOONE TO COQUIXA. 



The fight seems fairly on between you 

 and the men to whom you are giving num- 

 bers in your pen, and one almost hears 

 Captain Cuttle again with his unfailing 

 word for all emergencies, "Stand by!" If 

 in the battle you should give out the names, 

 numbers and faces, electrotyped and ready 

 for framing and hanging on the wall, I 

 should not wish to be in that gallery. 



I am much amused by tender regard that 

 other sportsmen's periodicals show for the 

 feelings of the men in the pen and their 

 deprecation of rough words and measures 

 regarding them and their offences. Sir 

 Samuel Baker tells us after wide experi- 

 ence in India, Ceylon and Africa, he had 

 found the best missile for all soft skinned 

 animals to be the greatest quantity of soft 

 lead that can be fired comfortably from the 

 shoulder; for pachyderms one must harden 

 his lead and use explosives. You plainly 

 show that you load for pachyderms and 

 you have the great hunter's authority. I 

 interpret this concern for the class you are 

 after, as showing something in the fence; 

 something in the line of sensitiveness as to 

 your circulation. 



Friend Coquina, all this takes me back 

 over the 30 years that you and I have, in 

 our several ways, been working for thought- 

 fulness and humanity toward the game. A 

 few instances occur to me. Many years 

 ago, before the law became stringent, and 

 when the marketmen of Chicago, Boston 

 and New York had full swing to fill the 

 mouths of their city customers, a man of 

 my near acquaintance in an Iowa town 

 made a side line to his regular business 

 by buying trapped prairie chickens. It was 

 more orofitable than his regular business. 

 He took me into a side room and showed 

 me the floor covered with frozen prairie 

 chickens, each with the head tucked under 

 the wing, ready for the barrel and the ship- 

 ping. It was the sadest sight I ever saw in 

 the game line, save 300 chickens rotting on 

 the lake shore, shot by a man from Boston, 

 to break his dogs. I also saw 500 in a 

 festering heap the summer before in a 

 game dealer's store in Chicago, spoiled by 

 heat. My friend looked gloatingly on the 

 show of .birds. It was near spring, and he 

 said : 



_ ''These are the last of 2,200 I have shipped 

 since New Year's day. I have made a 

 good thing out of it." 



"Yes," I said, ^in money; not in character 

 and honor. Is this lawful?" 



"Oh, not just lawful, but it is not noticed, 



and there is great demand for them at the 

 East." 



"Isn't the trapping unlawful?" 



"The trapper must look to that; it is not 

 my affair." 



The trapper was another citizen, his head 

 level up in the community. I had driven 

 past his pile of 300 traps out in the country 

 the summer before. 



Figuring out that one case, 2,200 birds are 

 1,100 pairs, average 12 young to the couple; 

 that is, 13,200 birds cut out of the increase 

 of the next year. There were 150 men in 

 Iowa engaged in the same business. How 

 long could Iowa expect to have chickens 

 for herself? The law declares grouse the 

 common property of the people and sets times 

 for taking them. That marketman and those 

 trappers robbed the people of 13,000 of the 

 next year's chickens. They might just as 

 well have taken money from the county 

 treasury. That would have made them 

 both thieves, and the killing of the birds 

 was a much more despicable form of steal- 

 ing. He had not made a good thing ! The 

 money burned in his pocket and at night he 

 had to sleep with a thief. I get hot, friend 

 Coquina, over these things, and talk extra. 

 Illicit gain one way led to illicit ways in 

 lawful trade. That man's business dwindled 

 and he failed, and the citizen trapper died 

 a poor man. A man can not steal and 

 thrive. A curse is in it all. In the early 

 days, I lived near one of Iowa's beautiful 

 little lakes. In the spawning season the 

 swollen outlet poured out the fish, and the 

 overflowed meadows were filled with them. 

 Then men and boys w 7 ith clubs, pitchforks, 

 even with their hands, would load the fish 

 into wagons and cart them home. The au- 

 thorities stretched wire netting across the 

 outlet to save the fish. That was held by 

 many to be high outrage and the netting 

 had to be guarded by night. It took years 

 for law and opinion to prevail. I wrote an 

 article for the local paper, calling attention 

 to the matter of delicacy as well as hu- 

 manity and saying that fish in spawning 

 time should no more be eaten than a sitting 

 hen from her nest ; that nature was against 

 it. The next day I met the President of the 

 local bank, and he said, "You gave me a 

 night of nausea and my stomach is not right 

 yet. Yesterday my wife had choice fish 

 baked for dinner and I ate heartily of it. In 

 the afternoon I read your article and felt 

 as if I had eaten a sitting hen or addled 

 eggs. I can't eat any more fish this sum- 

 mer !" 



On the gilt ball of the spire of our school- 



239 



