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or none will remain in the State. Ohio has no waste land. It is all useful for 
agricultural purposes — if not for tillage, at least for pasturage. It has no sterile 
wastes, marshes, or mountain ranges where the larger game can find permanent 
security. The deer, the bear, the wolf, and such like animals will soon be gone, 
and laws that relate to them will be a dead letter. 
The smaller animals, such as need no extensive covert, will remain ; but those 
which are mischievous, are surrounded by enemies that require no encouragement, 
and their serious increase need not be feared. Only two quadrupeds that are 
properly game — the squirrel and the rabbit or hare — will continue permanently in 
Ohio. As these are sometimes mischievous, the right to kill them on one’s own 
ground should be always reserved. Some might be disposed to include such ani- 
mals as the opossum and raccoon as eatable, but they are not generally so con- 
sidered. Though partly granivorous, they both feed mostly upon llesh. 
With birds it is different. Their power of movement enables them to escape, to 
change localities, to visit sections distant and inaccessible to man, and come back, 
perhaps, increased tenfold in numbers. Almost all birds are migratory, and by 
many the whole continent, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Regions, is 
yearly twice traversed. 
Probably every bird which existed in Ohio at its first settlement still remains in 
it or visits it, and many are found in greatly increased numbers. The quail fol- 
lows civilization, and as the country opens up, and the corn and grain fields widen, 
and its food becomes more abundant, its numbers will continue to increase. So 
of the harmless domestic birds. The robin, the blue bird, the cat bird, the swallow, 
&c., &c., love to gather around the homestead and build in the garden, the yard, 
and the out-house. The society of man protects, and his structures shelter them, 
and his cultivation furnishes the fruit, the seed, and the insects that they love to 
feed upon. Their beauty and grace of form and movement, will continue to 
please, and their songs to delight, as long as pleasant homes and happy house- 
holds exist in the land. 
The rigor of climate may compel them to abandon temporarily their accustomed 
localities, but, by a mysterious guidance, they return with the warm breezes of 
spring to build their nests and rear their young near the same spot. It is a beau- 
tiful idea that our favorite birds have their chosen homes, which they annually 
occupy and leave to their descendants, building under the same roof-tree, or in 
the same orchard, or garden, or shrubbery, where year after year they connect 
themselves with the same household, and mingle their warblings with the voices 
of our children. When we contemplate this wonderful habit, with all its tender 
associations, it seems a sacrilege to destroy and despoil, wantonly and unnecessa- 
rily, those who thus seek our protection. 
