"All right," said my friend, "I can put you in such a place; and if you can shoot well enough, you can kill a hundred ducks in a day."
The effort was made in all earnestness. There was much shooting, but few were the ducks that fell before it. In concluding this story my friend remarked in a tone of disgust:
"All the game-preserving sportsmen that come to me are just like that! They want to kill all they can kill!"
There is a blood-test by which to separate the conscientious sportsmen from the mere gunners. Here it is:
A sportsman stops shooting when game becomes scarce; and he does not object to long-close-season laws; but
A gunner believes in killing "all that the law allows;" and he objects to long close seasons!
I warrant that whenever and wherever this test is applied it will separate the sheep from the goats. It applies in all America, all Asia and Africa, and in Greenland, with equal force.
The Game-Hog. —This term was coined by G.O. Shields, in 1897, when he was editor and owner of Recreation Magazine, and it has come into general use. It has been recognized by a judge on the bench as being an appropriate term to apply to all men who selfishly slaughter wild game beyond the limits of decency. Although it is a harsh term, and was mercilessly used by Mr. Shields in his fierce war on the men who slaughtered game for "sport," it has jarred at least a hundred thousand men into their first realization of the fact that to-day there is a difference between decency and indecency in the pursuit of game. The use of the term has done very great good; but, strange to say, it has made for Mr. Shields a great many enemies outside the ranks of the game-hogs themselves! From this one might fairly suppose that there is such a thing as a sympathetic game-hog!
One thing at least is certain. During a period of about six years, while his war with the game-hogs was on, from Maine to California, Mr. Shields's name became a genuine terror to excessive killers of game; and it is reasonably certain that his war saved a great number of game birds from the slaughter that otherwise would have overtaken them!
The number of armed men and boys who annually take the field in the United States in the pursuit of birds and quadrupeds, is enormous. People who do not shoot have no conception of it; and neither do they comprehend the mechanical perfection and fearful deadliness of the weapons used. This feature of the situation can hardly be realized until some aspect of it is actually seen.