To-day, the visible game supply of Ohio does not amount to anything; and when the last game bird of that state falls before the greediest shooter, we shall say, “A gameless state is just what you deserve!”

It is useless to make any suggestions to Ohio.  Her shooting Shylocks want the last pound of flesh from wild life, and I think they will get it very soon.  Ohio is in the area of barren states.  The seed stock has been too thoroughly destroyed to be recuperated.  I think that Ohio’s last noteworthy exploit in lawmaking for the preservation (!) of her game was in 1904, when she put all her shore birds into the list of killable game, and bravely prohibited the shooting of doves on the ground! Great is Ohio in game conservation!

OKLAHOMA: 

For a state so young, the wild-life laws of Oklahoma are in admirable shape; but it is reasonably certain that there, as elsewhere, the game is being killed much faster than it is breeding.  The new commonwealth must arouse, and screw up the brakes much tighter.

Recently, an observing friend told me that on a trip of 250 miles westward from Lawton and back again, watching sharply for game all the way, he saw only five pinnated grouse!  And this in a good season for “prairie chickens.”

  Oklahoma must stop all spring shooting.

  The prairie chicken must have a ten-year close season, immediately.

  Next time, her legislature will pass the automatic gun bill that
  failed last year only because the session closed too soon for its
  consideration.

Oklahoma is wise in giving long protection to her quail, and “wild pigeon,” and such protection should be made equally effective in the case of the dove.  She is wise in rigidly enforcing her law against the exportation of game.

The Wichita National Bison herd, near Cache, now contains forty head of bison, all in good condition.  The nucleus herd consisted of fifteen head presented by the New York Zoological Society in 1907.

OREGON: 

The results of the efforts that have been made by Oregon to provide special laws for each individual shooter are painful to contemplate.  Like North Carolina, Oregon has attempted the impossible task of pleasing everybody, and at the same time protecting her wild life.  The two propositions can be blended together about as easily as asphalt and water.  The individual shooter desires laws that will permit him to shoot—­when he pleases, where he pleases, and what he pleases!  If you meet those conditions all over a great state, then it is time to bid farewell to the game; for it surely is doomed.

No, decidedly no!  Do not attempt to pass game laws that will “please everybody.”  The more the game-hogs are displeased, the better for the game!  The game-hogs form a very small and very insignificant minority of the whole People.  Why please one man at the expense of ninety-nine others?  The game of a state belongs to The People as a whole, not to the gunners alone.  The great, patient,—­and sometimes sleepy,—­majority has vested rights in it, and it is for it to say how it shall and shall not be killed.  Heretofore the gunning minority has been dictating the game laws of America, and the result is—­progressive extermination.