BULLETIN NUMBER FIVE 
213 
ing seriousness. Wherever the game supply is perpetual, 
there is no worry; but where game extinction looms up 
ahead, there is a crisis to be dealt with. We may as well 
face this situation now, and resolutely grapple with it. 
In the first place, the principle that the protection of game 
and other wild life must be supported by the killing of game, 
is thoroughly and everlastingly wrong! We might as well 
assume that every public school must be supported by its 
pupils, or go out of business. 
Through the force of circumstances we have been drifting 
with the current of game slaughter, until we have lodged 
upon a foundation of sand. The principle of game protec¬ 
tion only through game slaughter , is reprehensible and un¬ 
tenable. For the people of any state to assume that pro¬ 
tection must come through slaughter or not come at all, is 
to assume that the song and insectivorous birds are not 
worth protecting when their defense must be paid for by 
the tax-payers at large. Shall robins be slaughtered by 
pot-hunters because there are no more ducks for licensed 
sportsmen to kill? Shall the wild birds and beasts of game¬ 
less states have no protection? 
The duty of the citizen,—to protect wild life according 
to its needs,—has nothing whatever to do with regulations 
for the killing of game, or the income to be derived there¬ 
from. Game-killing and modern wild life protection are 
two very distinct and widely-separated industries. If the 
licensing of game hunters happens to produce a considerable 
revenue, that incident is merely the good fortune of the 
state treasury, and nothing more. If hunting is a legitimate 
sport, and of genuine benefit to a large body of good citizens, 
it is the duty of the state to regulate it, and make it bear 
its share of public burdens; but the protection of wild life 
must not depend for its life blood upon hunting-license rev¬ 
enues. Wherever the hunting-license fees can and do pay 
the costs of game and song-bird protection, that is the good 
fortune of the state taxpayer, but it does not in any manner 
