WAR AGAINST FROGS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 346, 18 August 1930, Page 8

WAR AGAINST FROGS

MAN WITH A GUN. ‘SHOOTING OUT OF SEASON.” When M. Dominique Dupieux, of Bourges, Franco, sat at the window of his home beside a river and shot ?t booming frogs which disturbed his rest, he little thought what complicated trouble he was storing up for himself. For weeks tho inhabitants of Bourges were disturbed at night by the croak of large frogs and the loud reports of a shotgun. The police discovered M. Dupieux sitting at his window, with a nightcap on his head and a gun in his hand, engaged in a wrr of extermination upon the frogs which disturbed his sleep. While the police watched the deepthroated serenade of frogs was punctuated by the thunder of the shotgun, and several more of the croakers were gathered to their ancestors. Realising that the hunting season was at an end, and that the fishing season had not begun, the police arrested M. Dupieux and charged him with infringing the game laws, disturbing the peace at night, fishing out of season, shooting out of season, killing frogs out of season, and carrying firearms without a permit. But M. Dupieux contends that he wa:: assisting the law by killing noisy frogs. He-denies that he was hunting or fishing, and retorts to the police that he hates frogs with such deep hatred that he could not bring himself to eat any sort of frog.

The public prosecutor stated that, when this case came before the courts, he would maintain that the shooting of frogs was no different from shooting partridges at this season. To this M. Dupieux replied that partridges do not croak by the river bank.