The average for the twenty-seven states that issued licenses as shown above is 55,046 for each state.

Now, the twenty-one states issuing no licenses, or not reporting, produced in 1911 fully as many gunners per capita as did the other twenty-seven states.  Computed fairly on existing averages they must have turned out a total of 1,155,966 gunners, making for all the United States =2,642,194= armed men and boys warring upon the remnant of game in 1911.  We are not counting the large number of lawless hunters who never take out licenses.  Now, is Mr. Beard’s picture a truthful presentation, or not?

New York with only deer, ruffed grouse, shore-birds, ducks and a very few woodcock to shoot annually puts into the field 150,222 armed men.  In 1909 they killed about 9,000 deer!

New Jersey, spending $30,000 in 1912 in efforts to restock her covers with game, and with a population of 2,537,167, sent out in 1911 a total army of 61,920 well-armed gunners.  How can any of her game survive?

New Hampshire, with only 430,572 population, has 33,542 licensed hunters,—­equal to thirty-three regiments of full strength!

Vermont, with 355,956 people, sends out annually an army of 31,762 men who hunt according to law; and in 1910 they killed 3,649 deer.

Utah, with only 373,351 population, had 27,800 men in the field after her very small remnant of game!  How can any wild thing of Utah escape?

Montana, population 376,053, had in 1911 an army of 59,291 well-armed men, warring chiefly upon the big game, and swiftly exterminating it.

How long can any of the big game stand before the army of two and one-half million well-armed men, eager and keen to kill, and out to get an equivalent for their annual expenditure in guns, ammunition and other expenses?

In addition to the hunters themselves, they are assisted by thousands of expert guides, thousands of horses, thousands of dogs, hundreds of automobiles and hundreds of thousands of tents.  Each big-game hunter has an experienced guide who knows the haunts and habits of the game, the best feeding grounds, the best trails, and everything else that will aid the hunter in taking the game at a disadvantage and destroying it.  The big-game rifles are of the highest power, the longest range, the greatest accuracy and the best repeating mechanism that modern inventive genius can produce.  It is said that in Wyoming the Maxim silencer is now being used.  England has produced a weapon of a new type, called “the scatter rifle,” which is intended for use on ducks.  The best binoculars are used in searching out the game, and horses carry the hunters and guides as near as possible to the game.  For bears, baits are freely used, and in the pursuit of pumas, dogs are employed to the limit of the available supply.

The deadliness of the automobile in hunting already is so apparent that North Dakota has wisely and justly forbidden their use by law, (1911).  The swift machine enables city gunmen to penetrate game regions they could not reach with horses, and hunt through from four to six localities per day, instead of one only, as formerly.  The use of automobiles in hunting should be everywhere prohibited.