failed to effect the salvation of American wild game. Not by
any scheme, device, or theory, not by any panacea can the old days
of America be brought back to us.

* * * * *

Mr. Hough's views are entitled to respectful consideration; but on one
vital point I do not follow him.

I believe most sincerely--in fact, _I know_,--that it is _possible_ to
make a few new laws which, in addition to the many, many good protective
laws we already have, will bring back the game, just as fast and as far
as man's settlements, towns, railroads, mines and schemes in general
ever can permit it to come back.

If the American People as a whole elect that our wild life shall be
saved, and to a reasonable extent brought back, then by the Eternal it
will be saved and brought back! The road lies straight before us, and
the going is easy--_if_ the Mass makes up its mind to act. But on one
vital point Mr. Hough is right. The sportsman alone never will save the
game! The people who do not kill must act, independently.

* * * * *

PART II.--PRESERVATION

CHAPTER XXII

OUR ANNUAL LOSSES BY INSECTS

"You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live."

"In no country in the world," says Mr. C.L. Marlatt, of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, "do insects impose a heavier tax on farm
products than in the United States." These attacks are based upon an
enormous and varied annual output of cereals and fruits, and a great
variety and number of trees. For every vegetable-eating insect, native
and foreign, we seem to have crops, trees and plant food galore; and
their ravages rob the market-basket and the dinner-pail. In 1912 there
were riots in the streets of New York over the high cost of food.

In 1903, this state of fact was made the subject of a special inquiry by
the Department of Agriculture, and in the "Yearbook" for 1904, the
reader will find, on page 461, an article entitled, "The Annual Loss
Occasioned by Destructive Insects in the United States." The article is
not of the sensational type, it was not written in an alarmist spirit,
but from beginning to end it is a calm, cold-blooded analysis of
existing facts, and the conclusions that fairly may be drawn from them.
The opinions of several experts have been considered and quoted, and
often their independent figures are stated.

With the disappearance of our birds generally, and especially the
sl