and he has grown up
in the fixed belief that killing song-birds for food is right! To him
all is game that goes into the bag. The moment he sets foot in the open,
he provides himself with a shot-gun, and he looks about for things to
kill. It is "a free country;" therefore, he may kill anything he can
find, cook it and eat it. If anybody attempts to check him,--sapristi!
beware his gun! He cheerfully invades your fields, and even your lawn;
and he shoots robins, bluebirds, thrushes, catbirds, grosbeaks,
tanagers, orioles, woodpeckers, quail, snipe, ducks, crows, and herons.

Down in Virginia, near Charlottesville, an Italian who was working on a
new railroad once killed a turkey buzzard; and he selfishly cooked it
and ate it, all alone. A pot-hunting compatriot of his heard of it, and
reproached him for having-dined on game in camera. In the quarrel that
ensued, one of the "sportsmen" stabbed the other to death.

When the New York Zoological Society began work on its Park in 1899, the
northern half of the Borough of the Bronx was a regular daily
hunting-ground for the slaughter of song-birds, and all other birds that
could be found. Every Sunday it was "bangetty!" "bang!" from Pelham Bay
to Van Cortlandt. The police force paid not the slightest attention to
these open, flagrant, shameless violations of the city ordinances and
the state bird laws. In those days I never but once heard of a policeman
_on his own initiative_ arresting a birdshooter, even on Sunday; but
whenever meddlesome special wardens from the Zoological Park have
pointedly called upon the local police force for help, it has always
been given with cheerful alacrity. In the fall of 1912 an appeal to the
Police Commissioner resulted in a general order to stop all hunting and
shooting in the Borough of the Bronx, and a reform is now on.

The war on the bird-killers in New York City began in 1900. It seemed
that if the Zoological Society did not take up the matter, the slaughter
would continue indefinitely. The white man's burden was taken up; and
the story of the war is rather illuminating. Mr. G.O. Shields,
President of the League of American Sportsmen, quickly became interested
in the matter, and entered actively into the campaign. For months
unnumbered, he spent every Sunday patroling the woods and thickets of
northern New York and Westchester county, usually accompanied by John J.
Rose and Rudolph Bell of the Zoological Park force, for whom
appointmen