The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-17
By John Fl. Wallace, Jr., of Huntsville,
 Alabama.


 Alabama.
 The time has come when the people must call a halt in the reckless and wanton slaughter of the small remnant of the game birds and game mammals. or in a few years not a vestige will re- main
 This can only be done by the enact ment and enforcement of law that will in reality protect the game.
 We have game laws, but there is no popular demand nor public sentiment that calls for their enforcement. All readily agree that infractors of the ex- isting statutes should be prosecuted. yet no one seems to be called upon to instigate prosecutions.
 The game law Is violated. in most instances because the offenders know that they will not be indicted.
 We need a uniform law; Game Warden, who has the authority to ap- point deputies in each county and pre- cinct in the State. whose duty 1t shall be to enforce the game law and bring the violators thereof to justice. Let every sportsman and lover of bird life in Alabama take up the fight for such a law and wage vigorous and determined campaign for It's speedy enactment. Game birds. to some extent, by virtue of their already deplorable scarcity. have elicited protective Legislation. The mind of man imperatively demands recreation. Unless diversion can be found in 6 legitimate vein he. in his great unrest. seeks that which is not wholesome.
 | Hunting has ever been the sport of kings, peasants and savages alike, and the chase will always hold for man an incomparsble infatuation.
 When America was first discovered
 it was an idealistic sportsman's para and panther roamed the forests, geese. duck. brant, swan and wild pigeons 1 flew overhead In countless millions. Practically all have been slaughtered, l and the great sport once enjoyed by primeval nimrods fingers only In tra- | dition
 The few remaining species of game and birds should be vigilantly protect cd against annihilation, and so prop l agated that gentlemen will consider 1 the pursuit of the elusive denizens Of the brush infinitely preferable to Bac- chanal hilarlty and that riotous revei- ry that emasCulates all that IS noble, pure and godlike Tn mans architecture. The great question of the cause of the 1 prevalence of plant maladies and the problem of the weed control each year grows more harrassing to the farmers. ] The reason of this is simple. Our most , benetciai birds, among them doves, robins. field larks and bullbats. have been so ruthlessly destroyed that in less than generation their numbers have decreased eighty per cent When the fact is recalled that the stomach of one dove, recently killed in Tennessee contained over 1000 weed seeds, and when if Is understood that healthy dove will destroy each fee,i- | ing day at least 5000 prospec i've weeds. moro than two negroes. working at Sl.5o per day each. could uproot in double the time 1t is easy to see from the tons upon tons of weed seed (be- sides insects. that this bird would de- stroy each year that our cheapest. most ethcient hoe hand proves in the end to be the Alabama dove.
 AS all insect devourer. the hullbat IS equally Servceable. It's stomach Is elastic and will hold more than that of pigeon and it's vorscity is simply phenomenal yet its diminutive frame