« ( 
Mr, Brewster 
2 
a great curiosity as this noble bird was no\v nearly extinct by reason of 
the spring shooting! 
I hate to believe that a scientific man or quasi scientific 
man, with a love of nature such as I suppose Mr. Forbush to have, can 
stoop to this kind of thing. As my notion of Mr. Forbush is, I find, 
pretty widespread and reacts most unfavorably on the Audubon Society and 
in general on the whole matter of proper game laws and their proper en¬ 
forcement, the impression among the gunning men ought to be corrected if 
it can be. So long as men look upon a law as the work of a disingenuous 
fanatic, whether a man or a society, based on gross and knowing misrep¬ 
resentation, and believe that if the law-makers had been truly informed 
as to the facts the law would not have been passed, so long you will not 
find the law honored. I do not state this in the least as a threat. 
Personally I consider myself absolutely morally bound by every law the 
Commonwealth makes no matter how I may privately despise it, and all the 
gunners I know are preparing to obey the new law, but many of them very 
sullenly. The feeling is general and very unfortunate that they have 
simply been tricked; that this law was not made in good faith for bird 
protection but merely jammed through politically and has accordingly no 
moral force at all but is to be beaten whenever and however legally 
possible. That is a wholly wrong condition of affairs. The gunners shoul 
be, and might be made for the most part, zealous defenders and enforcers 
of the gunning laws. The major and better part of them love the birds al 
most, though I suppose not quite, as well as the Audubon people. 
V e ry t.ni1 v vmirs 
