45° 



RECREATION 



prodigality upon all wild creatures, some of 

 them of inestimable economic value. 



It is now time that some nation should wake 

 up to the vast importance that many of these 

 wild animals are to the welfare of man. With- 

 out going out of our own country or pointing to 

 the waste and crime of exterminating the 

 splendid big antelope of Africa and the useful 

 zebras of the same country, which can live in a 

 Land infested by flies which kill ordinary horses, 

 we can start a movement now to save for our 

 descendants the big animals of this country, 

 and, as "Buffalo" Jones has demonstrated, 

 can produce cattle that will live on pastures 

 where our old-time domestic animals would 

 starve to death; pass through blizzards un- 

 harmed which now slay thousands of the 

 ranchmen's cattle, often to the financial ruin 

 of their owners; live in a land where water is so 

 scarce that no man would now think of locating 

 a cattle ranch, and under these circumstances 

 grow fat and produce good robes and delicious 

 meat. 



We have a superabundance of worthless, 

 dangerous and pernicious millionaires in this 

 country who seem to have nothing to do but 

 practice progressive polygamy, but many of 

 these men have the material in them for the 

 making of decent men. Why cannot some of 

 these men lend their financial backing to some 

 such scheme as that which " Buffalo" Jones 

 has inaugurated, that of hybridizing the 

 vanishing buffalo with cattle, and make them- 

 selves useful ? There can be no life more excit- 

 ing, healthful, invigorating and manly than 

 running an experimental ranch for the breeding 

 of the so-called catalo. We can produce suffi- 

 cient evidence to satisfy anyone that there is as 

 much excitement in being chased by a bull 

 buffalo as there is in driving an automobile at a 

 lawbreaking speed, and a bull buffalo will 

 give one some real exercise of the body, exercise 

 which will develop the muscles and heighten one's 

 respect for horned beasts. 



The foregoing is written to appeal to those 

 people who are devoid of sentiment for the 

 American animals as historic creatures, but who 

 at the suggestion of the movement for the pre- 

 servation of the American bison will meet you 

 with the question, "What's the use?" 



We reiterate: If you have more money than 

 you know what to do with, and must ride a 

 hobby, why not ride a good hobby? Buy a 

 ranch, a big one and a good, and go to breeding 

 catalo. Do not be inutile. Produce something! 



sense, liberal, unselfish view of the world, it 

 will shock and grieve this man to know that 

 while this is being written strings of slaughtered 

 robins decorate the markets of Norfolk, Va., 

 and are offered for sale at seventy-five cents 

 a dozen. Shame on you, Virginians! Where 

 are the F. F. V.s, the chivalry of this country? 

 What are they doing while this disgrace to their 

 great State is publicly displayed in Norfolk ? 



The Shame of Virginia 



To return to the normal reader, the man who 

 has a healthv sentiment founded on a common 



Ditto Maryland 



Mr. Charles Lever, a local sportsman in the 

 Borough of Queens, Greater New York, has 

 just returned from Maryland, in the neighbor- 

 hood of Annapolis, and he reports that the wa- 

 ters of the river there have permanent blinds 

 at regular distances, only a few hundred yards 

 apart, for miles in every direction; also that 

 these are owned by the sportsmen ( ?) of Anna- 

 polis, and that they shoot there on certain days 

 in the week all through the spring; also that 

 the blinds are baited with corn during the other 

 days of the week to induce the ducks to feed 

 there. From other reliable sources we learn 

 that one gentleman (save the mark) killed 160 

 ducks in one morning's shooting. 



The old-time Marylanders used to go out 

 with a small cannon for ducks. In those days 

 the waters were so covered with water-fowl that 

 when they arose the noise of their wings sounded 

 like thunder and they shut out the light of the 

 sun. When a Marylander went out with his 

 cannon and fired into such a flock he had his 

 negroes come with a cart to bring in the result 

 of his wholesale slaughter. There was nothing 

 sportsmanlike in this, and these old fellows did 

 not claim that it was sport; they simply went 

 for the meat. It is due to the memory of these 

 ancestors of the present people of Maryland 

 to say that they were true sportsmen of their 

 time. They were hard riders and intrepid 

 followers of the chase. It is also due them to 

 say that the supply of water-fowl seemed to be, 

 and was thought to be, inexhaustible, and hence 

 the use of a cannon to secure a cartload of ducks. 

 But the modern Marylander knows better; he 

 knows that the supply of water-fowl is con- 

 stantly diminishing; he knows that it is far 

 from sportsmanlike to kill them in the spring 

 and he knows that a bag of 160 ducks for one 

 man is absolutely disgraceful. Why, then, will 

 otherwise respectable people bait these poor 

 fowl with corn and then slaughter them in the 

 name of sport? Such things are discouraging 

 to the rest of us who are working for the preser- 

 vation and perpetuation of our native game 

 animals. Wake up, Marylanders, do away with 

 this spring shooting and act like enlightened 

 men! Even in the Western States where wild- 



