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RECREATION. 



house, a few rods from my home, a large 

 fish hawk, or osprey, settled one evening, for 

 his nest. It .was an appeal to confidence 

 that went to all our hearts. We watched 

 him till the dusk hid him. Early in the 

 morning a shot was heard and I feared for 

 our friend. When I went into the post 

 office, there lay the poor creature, spread 

 out for inspection. The editor asked me what 

 it was, for no one knew. I told him it 

 was a fish hawk, one of the most interesting 

 and least harmful of all our birds. It has 

 so little fear of men that it likes to make 

 its nest near a farmer's home. A farmer 

 on the Des Moines river told me that a pair 

 had made their nest 4 years within gun- 

 shot of his door. Not a harmful hawk of 

 any kind dared go near : sharpshin, Coop- 

 er's, red tail, he would chase away, and 

 never touch a chicken himself. He is for 

 the fish. The poor fellow alighted right 

 among us, and slept on the schoolhouse 

 dome all night. I am sorry his trust in men 

 was met in this cruel way, for he is a noble 

 bird. 



"Write this out for me," said the editor, 

 "and I'll bet no one else will shoot a fish 

 hawk." 



I did so. Later I met a young friend 

 who said to me : "I am sorry about the 

 hawk. I saw him on the schoolhouse as I 

 went to breakfast, and, not knowing what 

 bird it was, I thoughtlessly told a shooting 

 man, and he went up and shot it. The kill- 

 ing has weighed on my mind ever since." 



The man who shot the osprey said it was 

 nothing but a bird, anyway, and it was not 

 worth such a fuss ! There is the line that 

 runs through our race, and we are all on 

 one side or the other. 



Out in the mountains we had a neighbor 

 who had been one of the old time skin and 

 meat hunters of the plains. I said to him 

 one day, 



"Johnny, didn't it ever trouble you to kill 

 a creature of 1,800 pounds, and dozens of 

 them, for a dollar or 2 dollars a hide?" 



"Yes, it did, sometimes, but it was 

 all my money, and I made it while I could. 

 I wouldn't do it now, for I see things 

 differently." 



PUMP GUNS AND MARKET HUNTERS. 



While I recommend the efforts of Recre- 

 ation to suppress the game hog, I consider 

 its attacks on the pump gun and on market 

 hunters ill-advised. We find the sworn 

 enemies of the pump using the latest and 

 most deadly of double guns and clamoring 

 for their further improvement ; yet they de- 

 nounce as hogs all who use the latest single 

 barrel. If these tender hearted sportsmen 

 are sincere, why do they not go back to the 

 muzzle loader and thus set us a good ex- 

 ample? I am to-day the owner of a Win- 

 chester repeating shot gun, the best and 



cheapest weapon the world has ever seen ; 

 yet, greatly through the influence of 

 Recreation, I am not i-ioth the game hog 

 that I have been behind the old time muzzle 

 loader. 



Let those who want to stop market hunt- 

 ing read the history of the Tolliston Club — 

 a history of cold-blooded murders, endless 

 litigation and bristles. It stopped the poor 

 market hunter, and had a monopoly of the 

 duck shooting for years in the Kankakee 

 marshes. 



I have in mind another club, located at 

 Bentig, Arkansas ; membership 350 espe- 

 cially organized and armed to protect game 

 by waging war on the market hunter. 

 These game protectors employed a man 

 who informed them by telegraph just when 

 game needed the most protection. Then 

 down they came, bristling with guns and 

 protected about every thing the market 

 shooter had overlooked. Thus things went 

 on until the slow going native realized that 

 his country was- becoming as barren of 

 game as Alaska is of oranges ; he saw 

 plainly that his fine shooting was being 

 hopelessly ruined. There was but one 

 thing to do ; it was clone, and the Bentig 

 Club house went up in smoke. I do not 

 wish to be understood as attacking the 

 members of those clubs as individuals, for 

 they were mostly gentlemen ; it is on com- 

 binations of this class that the bristles pro- 

 trude. In the end what difference does it 

 make whether some poor market hunter 

 ships a bunch of ducks to St. Louis or a 

 club man takes them as baggage. In either 

 case there are as many ducks destroyed. 

 W. H. M., Albion, Ind. 



ANSWER. 



Your defence of the market shooter is 

 decidedly lame, as any defence of that class 

 of hunters must be. Game has become too 

 scarce in this country to be longer an 

 article of commerce. The time was when 

 it was all right to sell it ; but that time has 

 long since passed. It should be regarded 

 as affording a legitimate means of sport 

 and recreation to the people who like out- 

 door sports, and even these should be lim- 

 ited to the smallest possible, number of 

 birds in a day and in a season, and the 

 seasons should be shortened to a minimum 

 in every State. 



There are men who claim that they 

 should have the right to buy and eat game 

 even though they do not -care to go out and 

 kill it, but I deny this. In politics the of- 

 fices belong to the men who can hustle for 

 them and get them. The money belongs to 

 the man- who is willing to work for it and 

 earn it. The land belongs to the men who 

 are thrifty and careful enough of the money 

 they earn to buy it, and the game belongs 

 by right to the men who have the energy, 

 snap and skill to go into the field and kill 

 it. I would not object to allowing a poor 



