The record-union., 1896-02-10
ONLY A FEW MORE DAYS.
The Shooting Season is Drawing to a
Close.
Thanks to Good Laws. Fairly En-
forced, It Has Been Salts
factory One.

quail are concerned. For a few weeks
later there will be some snipe-shooting,
but as these birds are always scarce in
this neighborhood not many sportsmen
are tempted to tramp the marshes and
bogs for the elusive Iong-bills. July 1st
the dove season will open
All in ALL the season now drawing to
a close has been one of the best for
many years past The laws for the
protection of game have been more
carefully looked after than ever before,
and yandals who had been in the habit
OF ignoring all laws have been arrested
and punished. Men have been taught
that they will not be permitted to en-
ploy howitzers for the slaughter Of
game, merely that they may put few
dollars in their pockets and leave moth
ing for coming generations.
California has been so favored in the
way Of wild game that it has taken
many years for the people to realize the
extent of the wanton destruction that
had been wrought by a few men bent on
making money at the expense of the
masses. These men have thought only
of their own gain. They do not care if
all the game of the State should be ex-
terminated by the time they may be
prepared to journey to the hunting
grounds of the next world, so long as
they can pocket a few dollars while
they are here.
The present game law is practically
the same as has been in force in this
State for forty years, the only material
change made by the last Legislature
being to shorten the open season one
month and to place a restriction on
market-huntin But this year more
attention has been paid to enforcing
the law, and those who have been
pinched by it have done more squealing
than was ever heard before. That is
all.
The limitation Of market-hunting is
something new in this State, although
it has been in vogue all over the East
fol many years. Naturally there has
been some fault found with it by mar
ket- hunters but it has proved a better
thing for them than if allowed to shoot
for the market during the whole season
with a limitation placed on the number
of birds that anyone might kill within
a given time. Under the present law
market-hunters have two months in
which to operate, and as each hunter
has to average from 100 to 250 ducks
day in order to make what is considered
good wages they all had chance to do
well during the two months.
If no person was allowed to kill more
than two dozen birds a day. the mar
ket-hunters' occupation would be gone
entirely, while professional shoot
ers would not suffer. A couple Of dozen
birds a day to the gun is enough for
anyone, and is more than the average
number bagged by those who go out
once a week for pleasure. Either the
present plan will have to be maintained
or a Limitation placed upon the number
of birds to the gun. The latter would
make it improbable for anyone to shoot
for the market.
Some years ago the farmers got the
idea into their heads that if wild ducks
were not protected during the breeding
season they would all be killed off and
that young crops of grain would not
longer suffer from nocturnal visits by
the wildfowl The Legislature humored
the whim, and for two seasons ducks
were not protected. But the farmers
made the discovery that before their
grain was so high as not to tempt the
ducks the latter had all gone away to
the north, and that the slaughter of
''fappers'' in the tules during the sum-
mer did not help their crops, as there
was no grain to be eaten until after the
migratory birds had returned from the
Arctic with their young.
So the granger game law went the
way of granger cooperative stores,
granger banks, granger political par
ties, etc, and the man who would now
ask to have the law withdraw its pro-
lection from wild ducks in summer
when the birds are in Alaskan order
to prevent them from going on grain
fields in winter, would be set down as
a worthy candidate for the Home for
the Predetermined.
The truth is, the farmers had been
fooled by a few crafty market hunters,
who wanted license to slaughter the
ducks during their breeding season and
at all times 1t was these men who
claimed that quail destroyed grapes be-
cause the birds frequented the vine
yards The truth is, the birds go there
to eat the bugs that infest the vines,
and the vineyardists now understand
it and welcome the little bug-eaters as
their best friends.
THE SAME EVERYWHERE.
A writer in "Harper's Weekly" re-
ferring to the way the game laws of the
country have been violated and the
wild game exter1ninated. says:
.'As the matter stands to-day, most
regions of our Eastern States are so
meagerly supplied with game of any
kind that many a sometime sportsman
does not find it worth while to take his
gun from its case from years end to
years end and hosts of would-be
sportsmen have been forced to the mis-
erable expedient of trap-shooting TO
satisfy their cunning instinct.
"This practical picture affords a la
mentable contrast to the imaginary
pieture which the stranger might nat
uraIly conjure up as he read our game
laws with their record Of more than
two hundred distinct species of game.
in the far North and Northwest, it
is true. game of many kinds is still
abundant. but this is only because these
regions are still unsettled and mac
cessible In the less remote North
western regions of the Mississippi and
Missouri Valleys, which have been set
tied in the last quarter century, game
has been exterminated at a rate never
before even approached in the history
of our country. In many regions Of
Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota and Kansas,
where ten years ago the veriest tyro
could fill his game-bag, to-day the most
skilled expert can often make but
fiimsy showing
FIELD NOTES.
While quail shooting on the north
side Of the American River the other
dow y TT Fc1xlon of I-o1So~, shot a