What possible justification in art or common sense is there in setting a dead animal on a hat? If any can be found, surely the effigy should be lifelike and not some horrible travesty. If ribbons and flowers are not enough ornaments to set off pretty faces, why not wind shining snake-skins about the crown of the hat; or utilize our resplendent moths and beetles as trimmings? They are elegant in form and color, varied, preservable, and by no means costly. Moreover, the general destruction which would follow the entry of such a fashion would reduce the insect enemies of our crops and garden-plants—but women seem to care nothing about that aspect of the case.
"The insects kill the crops," remarks Kauffman, "the birds kill the insects, and we—for the most part in order to trim your hats for you—kill the birds. A study of the government reports will show that crop losses from insects are rarely less than 10 per cent. and sometimes as high as 50."
We may now turn to another phase of our subject—the waste of game, fur-bearing animals, and other useful or beautiful creatures.
When Europeans first came to this continent the bison and elk roamed everywhere west of the Blue Ridge. By the middle of the nineteenth century all had disappeared east of the Great Plains, as completely as had the salmon which used to throng in our eastern rivers. And here, a few years later, both were almost utterly destroyed by wretched pot-hunters.
The moose, elk, antelope, mountain sheep and goats, beaver, sea-otter, and many other game and fur animals of North America have also suffered so terribly under relentless persecution that they now are found only in small numbers in very remote places. The sea-otter, of which at the beginning of the nineteenth century more than 15,000 were killed every year, has become so scarce that its coat, in good condition, is now worth $1,000 to the hunter.
The horrible stories of the butchery of the fur-seals and the passenger-pigeon need not be recited. The building up of great cities made a market for game and fish, and coincident therewith the market-hunter and the market-fisherman came into existence. Under these conditions the destruction went on merrily, until, in the early eighties, observant sportsmen and naturalists began to realize that extermination threatened such game-birds as the prairie-chicken, the quail, the ruffed grouse, the wood-duck, the canvasback duck, and even the well-known mallard and teal.
"Coincident with this great hegira to the woods," we are told by G. O. Shields, in a late number of "Collier's Weekly," "there appeared on the scene a type of man that has become known and recognized everywhere as the American game-hog. This depraved creature developed a fondness for killing every living thing he could find, whether edible or not, or whether he needed it for food or not. All he cared for was to kill, kill, kill. He loved to stop a beautiful animal in its flight and put it to death, or to see a bird double up in the air and fall with shot-pellets through its body.
"The competition became so strong between these game-hogs that they got to challenging one another to combats in the field, and contests were arranged weeks ahead, large stakes being deposited on the result.... The nineteenth-century 'side-hunt' became a feature of many rural districts.
"Is it any wonder, then, that decent men came to rebel against this savage slaughter? Good sportsmen, naturalists, and laymen became so disgusted with it that they went before their legislatures and demanded that it be stopped. Laws were accordingly enacted in many States ... and recently legislation for the preservation of the game has become a science, and a few men are devoting their best thought and their best energies to it.
"But the game-hog and the fish-hog bid defiance to all game-laws, written and unwritten. No State employs enough game-wardens to police all of its territory, so the ravaging of the wild went on."