cattle, wheat, independence.

And yet, how many men are there to-day, out of our ninety millions of
Americans and pseudo-Americans, who remember with any feeling of
gratitude the part played in American history by the white-tailed deer?
Very few! How many Americans are there in our land who now preserve that
deer for sentimental reasons, and because his forbears were
nation-builders? As a matter of fact, are there any?

On every eastern pioneer's monument, the white-tailed deer should
figure; and on those of the Great West, the bison and the antelope
should be cast in enduring bronze, "_lest we forget!_"

The game birds of America played a different part from that of the deer,
antelope and bison. In the early days, shotguns were few, and shot was
scarce and dear. The wild turkey and goose were the smallest birds on
which a rifleman could afford to expend a bullet and a whole charge of
powder. It was for this reason that the deer, bear, bison, and elk
disappeared from the eastern United States while the game birds yet
remained abundant. With the disappearance of the big game came the fat
steer, hog and hominy, the wheat-field, fruit orchard and poultry
galore.

The game birds of America, as a class and a mass, have not been swept
away to ward off starvation or to rescue the perishing. Even back in the
sixties and seventies, very, very few men of the North thought of
killing prairie chickens, ducks and quail, snipe and woodcock, in order
to keep the hunger wolf from the door. The process was too slow and
uncertain; and besides, the really-poor man rarely had the gun and
ammunition. Instead of attempting to live on birds, he hustled for the