The duties of the present hour, that fairly thrust themselves into our faces and will not be put aside, are these: 

First,—­To save valuable species from extermination!

Second,—­To preserve a satisfactory representation of our once rich fauna, to hand down to Posterity.

Third,—­To protect the farmer and fruit grower from the enormous losses that the destruction of our insectivorous and rodent-eating birds is now inflicting upon both the producer and consumer.

Fourth,—­To protect our forests, by protecting the birds that keep down the myriads of insects that are destructive to trees and shrubs.

Fifth,—­To preserve to the future sportsmen of America enough game and fish that they may have at least a taste of the legitimate pursuit of game in the open that has made life so interesting to the sportsmen of to-day.

For any civilized nation to exterminate valuable and interesting species of wild mammals, birds or fishes is more than a disgrace.  It is a crime!  We have no right, legal, moral or commercial, to exterminate any valuable or interesting species; because none of them belong to us, to exterminate or not, as we please.

For the people of any civilized nation to permit the slaughter of the wild birds that protect its crops, its fruits and its forests from the insect hordes, is worse than folly.  It is sheer orneryness and idiocy.  People who are either so lazy or asinine as to permit the slaughter of their best friends deserve to have their crops destroyed and their forests ravaged.  They deserve to pay twenty cents a pound for their cotton when the boll weevil has cut down the normal supply.

It is very desirable that we should now take an inventory of the forces that have been, and to-day are, active in the destruction of our wild birds, mammals, and game fishes.  During the past ten years a sufficient quantity of facts and figures has become available to enable us to secure a reasonably full and accurate view of the whole situation.  As we pause on our hill-top, and survey the field of carnage, we find that we are reviewing the Army of Destruction!

It is indeed a motley array.  We see true sportsmen beside ordinary gunners, game-hogs and meat hunters; handsome setter dogs are mixed up with coyotes, cats, foxes and skunks; and well-gowned women and ladies’ maids are jostled by half-naked “poor-white” and black-negro “plume hunters.”

Verily, the destruction of wild life makes strange companions.

Let us briefly review the several army corps that together make up the army of the destroyers.  Space in this volume forbids an extended notice of each.  Unfortunately it is impossible to segregate some of these classes, and number each one, for they merge together too closely for that; but we can at least describe the several classes that form the great mass of destroyers.