ed the hunter has a fine outfit of dogs, horses and
guides. Of prong-horned antelope, several bands remain, but it is
reported that they are steadily diminishing. The herds and herders of
domestic sheep are blamed for the decrease, and I have no doubt they
deserve it. The sheep and their champions are the implacable enemies of
all wild game, and before them the game vanishes, everywhere.

The lawmakers of Colorado have tried hard to provide adequate statutes
for the protection of the wild life of the state. In fact, I think that
no state has put forth greater or more elaborate efforts in that
direction. For example, in 1899, under the leadership of Judge D.C.
Beaman of Denver, Colorado initiated the "more game movement," by
enacting a very elaborate law providing for the establishment of private
game preserves and farms for the breeding of game under state license,
and the tagging and sale of preserve-bred game under state supervision.

[Illustration: BAND-TAILED PIGEON
Often Mistaken for the Passenger Pigeon. The rapid Slaughter
of this Species has Alarmed the Ornithologists of California,
who now fear its Extinction]

The history of game destruction in Colorado is a repetition of the old,
old story,--plenty of laws, but a hundred times too many hunters,
killing the game both according to law and contrary to it, and doing it
five times as fast as the game could breed. That combination can safely
be warranted to wipe out the wild life of any country in the world, and
accomplish it right swiftly.

As a big-game country, Colorado is distinctly out of the running. Her
people are too lawless, and her frontiersmen are, in the main, far too
selfish to look upon plenteous game without going after it. Some of
these days, a new call of the wild will arise in Colorado, demanding an
open season on mountain sheep. Those who demand it will say, "What harm
will it do to kill a few surplus bucks? It will improve the breed, and
make the herds increase faster!"

By all means, have an "open season" on the Colorado big-horn and the
British Columbia elk. It will "do them good." The excitement of ram
slaughter will be good for the females, will it not? Of course, they
will breed faster after that,--with all the big rams dead. Any "surplus"
wild life is a public nuisance, and should promptly be shot to pieces.

In Colorado there is some desire that Estes Park should be acquired as a
national park, and maintained by the government; but