62 



RECREATION 



them to take care of themselves in the Sum- 

 mer time. 



Late one fall, I saw several parrots, 

 which had escaped from some owner and 

 were slowly starving and freezing to death 

 in the trees ; and it would have wrung your 

 heart to have heard their pitiful cries of 

 "Polly wants a cracker," with no crackers 

 within reach and no one to feed them. 



THE DISGRACEFUL SIDE HUNT. 



From the Springfied (Illinois) Journal 

 we learn that the Central Illinois hunters 

 will attend an annual crow and hawk hunt, 

 which is conducted each May by the sports- 

 men of Kane County. 



Each crow will count one point in the com- 

 petition, butcher birds count three, and hawks 

 five points. The side which loses eats crow. 



The attention of the authorities and all 

 those interested in agriculture should be 

 brought to this subject. In all prairie coun- 

 tries there is a great amount of small, very 

 destructive rodents, gophers, various kind of 

 ground squirrels, mice and other creatures 

 of the same family which are only held in 

 subjection by the presence of certain birds of 

 prey, which live almost entirely upon these 

 animals. In all the late books upon bird life, 

 in all the government reports upon bird life, 

 and in the book of hawks, issued by the gov- 

 ernment, it is shown conclusively that most 

 of these birds of prey not only are not ene- 

 mies to the farmer but, in reality, his best 

 friends. 



Is it possible, in spite of all the amount of 

 literature issued upon this subject, that our 

 worthy friends of the "Sucker" state are still 

 so ignorant as to set out to kill every hawk 

 in sight, regardless of its economic value to 

 the community, or does this mean that the 

 side hunt is gotten up entirely by ignorant 

 people, whose only idea of sport is to go out 

 and kill something for the sake of seeing the 

 feathers fly and to count up their birds like 

 a chalk-mark score in a bowling alley? 



It would be advisable for the farmers in 

 the section of the country where this hunt is 

 to be held to read up a little upon the life 

 history of these birds before they engage, in 

 or allow others to engage in their extermin- 

 ation. If they do not, they will learn to their 

 sorrow that they can not interfere with Na- 

 ture's buzzsaw without serious consequences 

 to themselves; and then, indeed, they will all 

 sit down to a feast at which the agriculturists 

 and the merchants depending upon the dis- 

 trict will be compelled to eat crow. 



GRATITUDE. 



BY LAURANA W. SHELDON. 



Now speeds the wind across the dawn 

 From East to West, and lo, the cry, 



From all the sunny, dewy morn, 

 "How doubly, trebly blest am I J" 



BOOKS AND WRITERS. 



The Outlet. By Andy Adams. 



"The Outlet" is one more volume of cow- 

 boy life, giving in a vivid and accurate way 

 an account of a cattle drive from Texas to 

 Fort Buford in the Northwest. It will in- 

 terest all readers of Recreation who wish 

 more information upon the dangers and de- 

 tails of cattle herding and cattle selling. The 

 book is couched in a plain, matter-of-fact 

 style, but it is hard to classify; it is not a 

 scientific treatise, and it lacks most of the 

 essential elements of a novel. The narrative 

 falls far short of the humor and vigor with 

 which men like Owen Wister have wrought 

 the cow-puncher's life into literature, but the 

 plot of the story maintains its interest. Dan 

 Lovell, a cattle owner, starts to deliver some 

 ten thousand beeves into government hands, 

 in spite of several dealers who seem to be the 

 forerunners of our modern trust magnates. 

 These men of no conscience and large gov- 

 ernment pull hold up his herds at every turn. 

 Among the results are a lively pistol fracas, 

 and a free fight in a court-room. The final 

 efforts of the grafters to beat the honest 

 cowmen at the army post must be read to be 

 appreciated. Tom Quirk, who tells the story, 

 Runt Pickett, Forest and Saunders are all 

 real men. Cloth, 371 pp. . Price, $1.50. 

 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Our Common Birds and How to Know 



Them. By John B. Grant. Charles Scrib- 



ners' Sons. 



"Jack" Grant was once a novice himself 

 and had not forgotten his own trials and 

 tribulations when he wrote this book ; the 

 consequences are that the book is filled with 

 full-page illustrations from photographs of 

 the mounted bird skins which have been se- 

 lected because they show, even the novices, 

 the characteristics of the bird represented, 

 and serve to fix a mental photograph of them 

 in the mind of the student, which is more 

 las f ing than any scientific description, no 

 matter how carefully the latter may be writ- 

 ten. 



The letter-press is graphic, condensed, and 

 based upon careful personal observation as, 

 we can vouch, for we have more than once 

 met "Jack" in the field with note-book and 

 pencil, and also treasure fond memories of a 

 certain highly-educated crow which he gave us 

 after he had finished studying the bird's men- 

 tal characteristics. As a rule there is a full-page 

 picture for each page of letter-press in Mr- 

 Grant's book, and all the smaller birds are 

 shown life size. 



