terminating it.

How long can any of the big game stand before the army of _two and
one-half million well-armed men_, eager and keen to kill, and out to get
an equivalent for their annual expenditure in guns, ammunition and other
expenses?

In addition to the hunters themselves, they are assisted by thousands of
expert guides, thousands of horses, thousands of dogs, hundreds of
automobiles and hundreds of thousands of tents. Each big-game hunter has
an experienced guide who knows the haunts and habits of the game, the
best feeding grounds, the best trails, and everything else that will aid
the hunter in taking the game at a disadvantage and destroying it. The
big-game rifles are of the highest power, the longest range, the
greatest accuracy and the best repeating mechanism that modern inventive
genius can produce. It is said that in Wyoming the Maxim silencer is now
being used. England has produced a weapon of a new type, called "the
scatter rifle," which is intended for use on ducks. The best binoculars
are used in searching out the game, and horses carry the hunters and
guides as near as possible to the game. For bears, baits are freely
used, and in the pursuit of pumas, dogs are employed to the limit of the
available supply.

The deadliness of the automobile in hunting already is so apparent that
North Dakota has wisely and justly forbidden their use by law, (1911).
The swift machine enables city gunmen to penetrate game regions they
could not reach with horses, and hunt through from four to six
localities per day, instead of one only, as formerly. The use of
automobiles in hunting should be everywhere prohibited.

Every appliance and assistance that money can buy, the modern sportsman
secures to help him against the game. The game is beset during its
breeding season by various wild enemies,--foxes, cats, wolves, pumas,
lynxes, eagles, and many other predatory species. The only help that it
receives is in the form of an annual close season--_which thus far has
saved in America only a few local moose, white-tailed deer and a few
game birds, from steady and sure extermination_.

_The bag limits on which vast reliance is placed to preserve the wild
game, are a fraud, a delusion and a snare_! The few local exceptions
only prove the generality of the rule. In every state, without one
single exception, the bag limits are far too high, and the laws are of
deadly liberality. In many states, the bag limit laws on birds a