1.  They must demonstrate the fact that they have rights in the wild creatures, and demand their recognition, or

2.  See the killable game all swept off the continent by the Army of Destruction.

Really, it is to me very strange that gunners never care to save game birds on account of their beauty.  One living bob white on a fence is better than a score in a bloody game-bag.  A live squirrel in a tree is poetry in motion; but on the table a squirrel is a rodent that tastes as a rat smells.  Beside the ocean a flock of sandpipers is needed to complete the beautiful picture; but on the table a sandpiper is beneath contempt.  A live deer trotting over a green meadow, waving a triangular white flag, is a sight to thrill any human ganglion; but a deer lying dead,—­unless it has an exceptionally fine head,—­is only so much butcher’s meat.

One of the finest sights I ever saw in Montana was a big flock of sage grouse slowly stalking over a grassy flat thinly sprinkled with sage-brush.  It was far more inspiring than any pile of dead birds that I ever saw.  I remember scores of beautiful game birds that I have seen and not killed; but of all the game birds that I have eaten or tried to eat in New York, I remember with sincere pleasure only one.  Some of the ancient cold-storage candidates I remember “for cause,” as the lawyers say.

[Illustration:  ONE MORNING’S CATCH OF TROUT, NEAR SPOKANE Another Line of Extermination According to law.  Three Times too Many Fish for one rod.  In those Cold Mountain Streams, Fish Grow Slowly, and a Stream is Quickly “Fished out”]

Sportsmen and gunners, for God’s sake elevate your viewpoint of the game of the world.  Get out of the groove in which man has run ever since the days of Adam!  There is something in a game bird over and above its pound of flesh.  You don’t “need” the meat any longer; for you don’t know what hunger is, save by reading of it.  Try the field-glass and the camera, instead of the everlasting gun.  Any fool can take a five-dollar gun and kill a bird; but it takes a genius to photograph one wild bird and get “a good one.”  As hunters, the camera men have the best of it.  One good live-bird photograph is more of a trophy and a triumph than a bushel of dead birds.  The birds and mammals now are literally dying for your help in the making of long close seasons, and in the real stoppage of slaughter.  Can you not hear the call of the wild remnant?

It is time for the people who don’t shoot to call a halt on those who do; “and if this be treason, then let my enemies make the most of it!”

Since the above was written, I have read in the Outdoor World for April, 1912, the views of a veteran sportsman and writer, Mr. Emerson Hough, on the wild-life situation as it seems to him to-day.  It is a strong utterance, even though it reaches a pessimistic and gloomy conclusion which I do not share.  Altogether, however, its breadth of view, its general accuracy, and its incisiveness, entitle it to a full hearing.  The following is only an extract from a lengthy article entitled, “God’s Acre:”