ere arose a strong demand for an open
season; and eventually the government yielded to the pressure of the
hunters, and fixed a date whereon an open season should begin.

[Illustration: GULLS AND TERNS OF OUR COASTS, SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION
These Birds have been Saved and Brought back to us by the Splendid Efforts
of the Audubon Societies, and other Bird-Lovers. But for the Anti-Plumage
Laws, not one Gull or Tern would now Remain on our Atlantic Coast
From the "American Natural History"]

During the period preceding that fatal date, the living chamois, grown
half tame by years of immunity from the guns, were all carefully located
and marked down by those who intended to hunt them. At daybreak on the
fatal day, the onset began. Guns and hunters were everywhere, and the
mountains resounded with the fusillade. Hundreds of chamois were slain,
by hundreds of hunters; and by the close of that fatal "open season" the
species was more nearly exterminated throughout that region than ever
before. Once more those mountains were nice and barren of game.

Let that bloody and disgraceful episode serve as a warning to Americans
who are tempted to demand an open season on game that has bred back from
the verge of extinction. Particularly do we commend it to the notice of
the people of Colorado who _even now_ are demanding an open season on
the preserved mountain sheep of that state. The granting of such an open
season would be a brutal outrage. Those sheep are now so tame and
unsuspicious that the killing of them would be _cold-blooded murder!_

THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION.--Within reasonable limits, any partly-destroyed
wild species can be increased and brought back by giving absolute
protection from harassment and slaughter. When a species is struggling
to recuperate, it deserves to be left _entirely unmolested_ until it is
once more on safe ground.

Every breeding wild animal craves seclusion and entire immunity from
excitement and all forms of molestation. Nature simply demands this as
her unassailable right. It is my firm belief that any wild species will
breed in captivity whenever its members are given a degree of seclusion
that they deem satisfactory.

With species that have not been shot down to a point entirely too low,
adequate protection generously long in duration will bring back their
numbers. If the people of the United States so willed it, we could have
wild white-tailed deer in every state and in every county (save city