"THE ANGLER'S PARADISE."

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 109, 11 May 1927, Page 6

"THE ANGLER'S PARADISE."

PROTEST AGAINST KILLING FOX Spot*

PROTEST AGAINST KILLING FOJ SPQtt

(To tie Editor.) ~^~~ The "Times," London, recently devotM large and fairly exhaustive supplement to New Zealand. The articles, all writtenli our own countrymen, and their respective topics, sounded extremely »2 in print, and no doubt we are justified isr good deal of national pride, seeing our iSl* ment can yield assent to these very attraeSl accounts. Truly, Xew Zealand is varied}? beautiful in a measure to be a tourists, and of particular and distincti.?" interest to scientists. There is one phaseaC "attractiveness," however, which seems sreatlv to the fore just now. I refer to our«S* game" at sea, our "angler's paradise" in «i streams and lakes, and the '"happy hantiTT grounds" for game and the antlered sSF Judging from perusal of our pictorial puZ at this season, the opportunities f« • destS. tiveness in New Zealand appear to loom larewt as favourable aspects. Continuously wesee illustrations of "sportsmen" with tJeir grs some-looking catches, unbeautiful "Dags*a2hideous "trophies." There seems to be Sana fetish of convention about this form of "snort" in which the prime actor in the hun A is thon as a hero (or even a heroine, sad to relate) if he can be shown with a ghastly row of dangling ducks, quartered fallow deer v gaping fish which have been enticed oat of their native element by merciless man br means of a steel line. It appears that £ brazen image at which we worship is that of blood sports. The blue ducks poetically nesffiag in raupo swamp with the shy and rare fernbhS are not in themselves beautiful or attractive except as they fall helpless prey. In dec* sea fishing we see reviving traces of the tat* barians' abandon in having "a go" with the enemy. It is a lineal descendant of the idea of "right of conquest by violence." Anal a* wherever these "sportsmen" go they leata a track of spilt blood! —the slaughter of iimoeeat creatures. The custom has been given fresh life by the example of a few prominent people. That fact does not make these practices say more right or desirable. Following upoa these mistaken ideas of worthy sport, we see perfectly admirable people and thoroughly worthy citizens assuming upon high days aai holidays the role of plunderer. There is a* inconsistency here. Young children, as psychologists affirm, are prone to rapidly pap through the stages of primitive history. They glory in stamping a spider to death, in teasing a cat, in mutilating a fly. This is all pat down by their elders, and the children outgrow these ways. But when they attain manhoods estate, behold the revival of primitive instincts. They can n*w go forth exultantly to maim aai kill, for public opinion sheds a glare of importance upon the possessor of a "good or a real "fish 6tory." t ,; WINIFRED E. MILLEB,'