Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/132

104 nests in the impenetrable wilds of Arkansas, the Indian Territory, Canada and British America, as often as in the land of civilization where it can be reached for market. It is a source of profit to the poor, or pleasure to the rich. Its benefits to the Emmett County home- steaders, as felt through the cold of this winter alone, are enough to compensate for evils even as black as our Prof. Roney paints, and Emmett County is but a sample of whatever location the birds may settle in.

Let the law, in regard to distance, stand as it is. Enforce it against all alike; make no exceptions; let the rule of supply and demand govern the catchings, and you will have something better than all the professors in Michigan suggest. Let the supply be so large that prices are low and wages can't be made, and law or no law, the catching will stop. But don't make a law that will take bread out of the homesteader's mouth, and work from hundreds of poor and honest men; no, not even if the birds should be sacrificed, to a certain extent, for man is above the beasts, and the "beasts of the field and the birds of the air" are given unto him for his benefit and his profit.