the professional generally, are beyond comparison with those of the ordinary amateur.  To hunt successfully in the chaparral, requires a special genius.  One must have exhaustless patience, tact trained by a lifetime of this sort of work, perseverance incapable of discouragement, the silence of an Indian, and in this phrase—­when we are dealing with the skill of one who can make progress without sound through the tangles of the dry and stiff California chaparral—­is involved an exercise of skill comparable only to the fineness of touch of a Joachim or a St. Gaudens.  This sort of hunter marks one end of the scale of perfection; near the other and more familiar extreme is found the individual of whom this story is told.  He was an Englishman and had just returned from a trip into the jungle of India after big game, where he was accompanied by a guide, most expert in his profession.  One of the sportsman’s friends asked this man how his employer shot while on the trip.  His reply was a model of tact and concise statement:  “He shot divinely, but God was very merciful to the animals.”

He who reads this brief account may naturally ask:  What were the practical results of your Western trip?  Have you any ideas which may be of value in the solution of this problem of Game Refuges?  My primary conception of the duties of a Game Expert, sent out by a Bureau of a United States Department, was to approach this entire subject without preconceived theories, with an open and unbiased mind; to see as many of the various reserves as possible, under the guidance of the best men to be had, and, increasing in this manner my knowledge by every available means, to reserve the period of general consideration and of specific recommendation until the whole preliminary reconnoissance should be accomplished.  The thing of prime importance is that the game expert should see the reserves, and see them thoroughly.  In a measure of such scope what we desire is a well thought-out plan, based on knowledge of the actual conditions, knowledge acquired in the field for the future use of him who has acquired it.  No report can transfer to the mind of another an impression thus derived.

I had been but a short time engaged in this campaign of education before it seemed wise to abandon the limitations imposed by traveling in wagons; these held one to the valleys and to the dusty ways of men.  After that emancipation I lived in the haunts of the deer, traveling with a pack train, and cruising in about the same altitude affected by that most thoroughbred of all the conifers, the sugar pine.  Trust the genius of that tree, the pine, of all those that grow on any of the mountains of North America, of finest power, beauty, individuality, and distinction, to select the most attractive altitude for its home, the daintiest air, the air fullest of strong vitality and determination, whether man or deer is to participate in the virtues of the favored zone.  Many a time I went far beyond the region of the sugar pine, and not infrequently cruised beneath its lower limits.