Trail, deer; cabin, deer; clearing; bear, corn, deer; hogs, deer; cattle, wheat, independence.

And yet, how many men are there to-day, out of our ninety millions of Americans and pseudo-Americans, who remember with any feeling of gratitude the part played in American history by the white-tailed deer?  Very few!  How many Americans are there in our land who now preserve that deer for sentimental reasons, and because his forbears were nation-builders?  As a matter of fact, are there any?

On every eastern pioneer’s monument, the white-tailed deer should figure; and on those of the Great West, the bison and the antelope should be cast in enduring bronze, “lest we forget!”

The game birds of America played a different part from that of the deer, antelope and bison.  In the early days, shotguns were few, and shot was scarce and dear.  The wild turkey and goose were the smallest birds on which a rifleman could afford to expend a bullet and a whole charge of powder.  It was for this reason that the deer, bear, bison, and elk disappeared from the eastern United States while the game birds yet remained abundant.  With the disappearance of the big game came the fat steer, hog and hominy, the wheat-field, fruit orchard and poultry galore.

The game birds of America, as a class and a mass, have not been swept away to ward off starvation or to rescue the perishing.  Even back in the sixties and seventies, very, very few men of the North thought of killing prairie chickens, ducks and quail, snipe and woodcock, in order to keep the hunger wolf from the door.  The process was too slow and uncertain; and besides, the really-poor man rarely had the gun and ammunition.  Instead of attempting to live on birds, he hustled for the staple food products that the soil of his own farm could produce.

First, last and nearly all the time, the game birds of the United States as a whole, have been sacrificed on the altar of Rank Luxury, to tempt appetites that were tired of fried chicken and other farm delicacies.  To-day, even the average poor man hunts birds for the joy of the outing, and the pampered epicures of the hotels and restaurants buy game birds, and eat small portions of them, solely to tempt jaded appetites.  If there is such a thing as “class” legislation, it is that which permits a few sordid market-shooters to slaughter the birds of the whole people in order to sell them to a few epicures.

The game of a state belongs to the whole people of the state.  The Supreme Court of the United States has so decided. (Geer vs.  Connecticut).  If it is abundant, it is a valuable asset.  The great value of the game birds of America lies not in their meat pounds as they lie upon the table, but in the temptation they annually put before millions of field-weary farmers and desk-weary clerks and merchants to get into their beloved hunting togs, stalk out into the lap of Nature, and say “Begone, dull Care!”