As civilization marches ever onward, over the prairies, into the bad lands and the forests, over the mountains and even into the farthest corner of Death Valley, the desert of deserts, the struggle of the wild birds, mammals and fishes is daily and hourly intensified.  Man must help them to maintain themselves, or accept a lifeless continent.  The best help consists in letting the wild creatures throughly alone, so that they can help themselves; but quail often need to be fed in critical periods.  The best food is wheat screenings placed under little tents of straw, bringing food and shelter together.

In the well settled portions of the United States, such species as quail, ruffed grouse, wild turkey, pinnated grouse and sage grouse hang to life by slender threads.  A winter of exceptionally deep snows, much sleet, and a late spring always causes grave anxiety among the state game wardens.  In Pennsylvania a very earnest movement is in progress to educate and persuade farmers to feed the quail in winter, and much good is being done in that direction.

Mr. Erasmus Wilson, of the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times is the apostle of that movement.

Quail should be fed every winter, in every northern state.  The methods to be pursued will be mentioned elsewhere.

By way of illustration, here is a sample game report, from Las Animas, Colorado, Feb. 22, 1912: 

“After the most severe winter weather experienced for twenty years we are able to compute approximately our loss of feathered life.  It is seventy-five per cent of the quail throughout the irrigated district, and about twenty per cent of meadow-larks.  In the rough cedar-covered sections south of the Arkansas River, the loss among the quail was much lighter.  The ground sparrows suffered severely, while the English sparrow seems to have come through in good shape.  Many cotton-tail rabbits starved to death, while the deep, light snow of January made them easy prey for hawks and coyotes.” (F.T.  Webber).

It would be possible to record many instances similar to the above, but why multiply them?  And now behold the cruel corollary: 

At least twenty-five times during the past two years I have heard and read arguments by sportsmen against my proposal for a 5-year close season for quail, taking the ground that “The sportsmen are not wholly to blame for the scarcity of quail.  It is the cold winters that kill them off!”

So then, because the fierce winters murder the bob white, wholesale, they should not have a chance to recover themselves!  Could human beings possibly assume a more absurd attitude?