SHOOTING SEASON AND GAME PRESERVATION. TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume XLIX, Issue 99, 27 April 1895, Page 4

SHOOTING SEASON AND GAME PRESERVATION. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir — It is eaßy to imagine up-oonntry people, as " Wairarapa Sportsman " says, saying "what a farce" to postpone the shooting peason to Ist May, when they see young wild dnoks and pigeons fit for the table in January— four months before the legal season opens. In their eagerness to take their only chance when it comes the law ib apt to be broken, and the genuine law-abiding sportsman comes off second-best And how aggravating to the genuine licensepaying deerstalker to read of large reservations being deolared as "sanctuaries," where no man may legally shoot, on large private properties, and thus to see private preserves of inestimable value secured to wealthy individuals; for one's month watera as the neighbouring settlers tell of the large number of stags shot on these " sanctuaries" in a season. The moral is well driven home on reading in the newspaper reports of the meetings of the Acclimatization Sooietios an acknowledgment with thanks of receipt of a handsome cheque from one of the fortunate proprietors ; and one wonders, too, for whose benefit the legal number of stags to be shot stated on the license was fixed. Can you wonder that the up-country people smile at the "farce," and shoot accordingly, especially when they see and hear of the mean and petty trioks displayed by " gentlemen" who should know better than to seoure rights of shooting on properties, often over the heads and against the wishes of owners or oooupiers by means of pressure through trustees, banks, Ao. P I have seen as much

meanness and grecdmoss of this kind here as over at Home. With regard to native birds, snob, as tuia, it is earnestly to be , hoped their protection may be strictly enfarced ere it is too late ; it is a shame to eboot j them. Let the Bhooting season be fixed at ] least a month earliT both for game and deer — the latter have now been roaring a month , past-fortheyarebothfartoolate. Finally, oan nothing be done to shame those brutes who boast of shooting more pigeons orduoks than they oan carry home, or black swans to be left to rot on the water where they fell, until their barrels were too hot to hold ? Snoh doings bespeak the larrikin, not the sportsman, whose name he shames. I am, Ao., Old Shot. Wairarapa, 16th April, 1895.