The most serious objection to this sport is, that the wild pigeons have to be taken from their nests in the spring, and thus, either prevented laying their eggs, or hatching their broods. As the preservation and increase of all species of wild birds, animals, and fishes, and the prevention of their destruction at unseasonable times, are the first duties of a sportsman, the killing of pigeons ere they have raised their broods is on a par with shooting ducks and snipe in spring, and is excusable only because the feeling of the people does not require the enactment of thoroughly appropriate laws; and while it prevents the protection of the latter, makes the preservation of the former--which is a comparatively valueless bird--scarcely worth the trouble. Under these circumstances, and in order to fill up a season of the year when there is no other legitimate sporting excitement, trap-shooting has grown in public estimation, and being adopted by a large class of sportsmen, has led to the employment of a numerous body of followers, skilled in the secrets of trapping and preparing birds so that they may be presented to the shooter in the best possible condition. This class of underlings, who attend to the many wants of the sportsman, whether in the field or at the trap; who break his dogs, carry his bag, or tend his birds; with their quaint wisdom and innate honesty,--deserve more consideration than they receive: but above all, in trap-shooting, are they a necessity, and is their uprightness above price? An unfair trapper may give one man strong birds, and another weak; may pull their wing-feathers, or keep some without water or food, and thus almost decide a contest beforehand. Their labor is excessive; they have first to catch the birds, and attend to their arrival at the place of shooting early enough to meet the sportsmen; and then they have to run eighteen or twenty-one yards over the uneven and often muddy ground for every bird they place in the trap. Hence, in selecting a place to shoot pigeons, it is desirable, by avoiding sand or soft earth, to save the trapper; under the most favorable circumstance, he will soon be exhausted, and with every advantage, cannot trap more than five hundred birds in a day. Two birds are released, either together or successively, ere the traps are replenished; the trapper, carrying two birds, runs to the traps, sets one after the other, and returns also on the run--for the marksman by this time is at the score--and selects two more birds from the box; this labor, continued during the noontide hours of a blazing day, is not over-remunerated by liberal pay and the surplus birds, that, unless claimed by the shooter, fall by common consent to the share of his hard-working assistant.