nd sheep-herder_; but thus far I have yet to hear
of one Western state that has ever spent one penny directly for the
preservation of the antelope! And to-day we are in a hand-to-hand fight
in Congress, and in Montana, with the Wool-Growers Association, which
maintains in Washington a keen lobbyist to keep aloft the tariff on
wool, and prevent Congress from taking 15 square miles of grass lands on
Snow Creek, Montana, for a National Antelope Preserve. All that the
wool-growers want is the entire earth, all to themselves. Mr. McClure,
the Secretary of the Association says:

"The proper place in which to preserve the big game of the West is in
city parks, where it can be protected."

To the colonist of the East and pioneer of the West, the white-tailed
deer was an ever present help in time of trouble. Without this
omnipresent animal, and the supply of good meat that each white flag
represented, the commissariat difficulties of the settlers who won the
country as far westward as Indiana would have been many times greater
than they were. The backwoods Pilgrim's progress was like this:

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