All the skill of woodcraft that goes to the making of the successful
hunter with the gun, must be possessed by him who hunts his game with
the camera. His must be the stealthy, panther-like tread that breaks no
twig nor rustles the fallen leaves. His the eye that reads at a glance
the signs that to the ordinary sight are a blank or at most are an
untranslatable enigma. His a patience that counts time as nothing when
measured with the object sought. When by the use and practice of these,
he has drawn within a closer range of his timid game than his brother of
the gun need attain, he pulls trigger of a weapon that destroys not, but
preserves its unharmed quarry in the very counterfeit of life and
motion. The wild world is not made the poorer by one life for his shot,
nor nature's peace disturbed, nor her nicely adjusted balance jarred.
He bears home his game, wearing still its pretty ways of life in the
midst of its loved surroundings, the swaying hemlock bough where the
grouse perched, the bending ferns about the deer's couch, the dew-beaded
sedges where the woodcock skulks in the shadows of the alders, the
lichened trunks and dim vistas of primeval woods, the sheen of voiceless
waterfalls, the flash of sunlit waves that never break.
His trophies the moth may not assail. His game touches a finer sense
than the palate possesses, satisfies a nobler appetite than the
stomach's craving, and furnishes forth a feast that, ever spread, ever
invites, and never palls upon the taste.
Moreover, this gentlest of sportsmen is hampered by no restrictions of
close time, nor confronted by penalties of trespass. All seasons are
open for his bloodless forays, all woods and waters free to his harmless
weapon.
Neither is he trammeled by any nice distinctions as to what may or may
not be considered game. Everything counts in his score. The eagle on
his craggy perch, the high-hole on his hollow tree, are as legitimate
game for him as the deer and grouse. All things beautiful and wild and
picturesque are his, yet he kills them not, but makes them a living and
enduring joy, to himself and all who behold them.