re people must egg or starve there is nothing more to be said. But
this sort of egging is very limited, not enough to destroy the birds,
and the necessity for it will become less frequent as other sources of
supply become available. It is the utterly wanton destruction that is
the real trouble.

And it is just as bad with the birds as with the eggs. A schooner
captain says, "Now, boys, here's your butcher shop: help yourselves!"
and this, remember, is in the brooding season. Not long ago the men
from a vessel in Cross harbour landed on an islet full of eiders and
killed every single brooding mother. Such men have grown up to this,
and there is that amount of excuse for them. Besides, they ate the
birds, though they destroyed the broods. Yet, as they always say, "We
don't know no law here," it may be suspected that they do know there
really is one. These men do a partly excusable wrong. But what about
those who ought to know better? In the summer of 1907 an American
millionaire's yacht landed a party who shot as many brooding birds on
St. Mary island as they chose, and then left the bodies to rot and
the broods to perish. That was, presumably, for sport. For the same
kind of sport, motor boats cut circles round diving birds, drown them,
and let the bodies float away. The North Shore people have drowned
myriads of moulting scoters in August; but they use the meat. Bestial
forms of sport are many and vile. "C'est un plaisir superbe" was the
description given by some voyageurs on exploring work, who had spent
the afternoon chasing young birds about the rocks and stamping them to
death. Deer were literally hacked to pieces by construction gangs on
new lines last summer. Dynamiting a stream is quite a common trick
wherever it is safe to play it. Harbour seals are wantonly shot in
deep fresh water where they cannot be recovered, much as seagulls are
shot by blackguards from an ocean liner.

And the worst of it is that all this wanton destruction is not by any
means confined to the ignorant or those who have been brought up to
it. The men from the American yacht must have known better. So do
those educated men from our own cities, who shoot out of season down
the St. Lawrence and plead, quite falsely, that there is no game law
below the Brandy Pots. It is, of course, well understood that a man
can always shoot for necessary food. But this provision is shamelessly
misused. Last summer, when a great employer of labour down the G