Our Vanishing Wild Life eBook

William Temple Hornaday
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 632 pages of information about Our Vanishing Wild Life.

Our Vanishing Wild Life eBook

William Temple Hornaday
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 632 pages of information about Our Vanishing Wild Life.

The price of a black fox is one of the wonders of a recklessly extravagant and whimsical age.  All the fur-wearing world knows very well that fox fur is one of the poorest of furs to withstand the wear and tear of actual use.  About two seasons’ hard wear are enough to put the best fox skin on the wane, and three or four can be guaranteed to throw it into the discard.  Even the finest black fox skin is nothing superlatively beautiful!  A choice “cross” fox skin costing only $50 is far more beautiful, as a color proposition; but London joyously pays $2,500 or $3,000 for a single black-fox skin, to wear!

Of course, all such fads as this are as ephemeral as the butterflies of summer.  The Russo-Japanese war quickly reduced the value of Alaskan blue foxes from $30 to $18; and away went the Alaskan fox farms!  A similar twist of Fortune’s fickle wheel may in any year send the black fox out of royal favor, and remove the bottom from the business of producing it.  Let us hope, however, that the craze for that fur will continue; for we like to see our friends and neighbors make good profits.

PHEASANT REARING.—­This subject is so well understood by game-breeders, and there is already so much good literature available regarding it, it is not necessary that I should take it up here.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XLI

TEACHING WILD LIFE PROTECTION TO THE YOUNG

Thousands of busy and burdened men and women are to-day striving hard, early and late, to promote measures that will preserve the valuable wild life of the world.  They desire to leave to the boys and girls of tomorrow a good showing of the marvelous bird and animal forms that make the world beautiful and interesting.  They are acting on the principle that the wild life of to-day is not ours, to destroy or to keep as we choose, but has been given to us in trust, partly for our benefit and partly for those who come after us and audit our accounts.  They believe that we have no right to squander and destroy a wild-life heritage of priceless value which we have done nothing to create, and which is not ours to destroy.

DUTY OF PARENTS.—­This being the case, it is very necessary that the young people of to-day should be taught, early and often, the virtue and the necessity of wild-life protection.  There is no reason that the boy of to-day should not take up his share of the common burden, just as soon as he is old enough to wander alone through the woods.  Let him be taught in precise terms that he must not rob birds’ nests, and that he must not shoot song-birds, woodpeckers and kingfishers with a 22-calibre rifle, or any other gun.  At this moment there lies upon my side table a vicious little 22-calibre rifle that was taken from two boys who were camping in the woods of Connecticut, and amusing themselves by shooting valuable insectivorous birds.  Now those boys were not wholly to blame for what they were doing; but their fathers and mothers were very much to blame!  They should have been taught at the parental knee that it is very wrong to kill any bird except a genuine game bird, and then only in the lawful open season.  Those two fathers paid $10 each for having failed in their duty; and it served them right; for they were the real culprits.

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Project Gutenberg
Our Vanishing Wild Life from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.