As the country became partially settled and the larger game supply diminished by unseasonable killing, clubs of squirrel hunters organized and laws wore enacted protecting beasts and birds with a close season. The good, the social and intelligent, became members for what there was in it. These clubs entertained no secrets, and did not pattern after any of the ancient orders with which the United States appear overblessed, nor were they given to boasting of their pedigrees. No one ever claimed King Solomon was “the father and founder,” although he might have been; and members were satisfied and sanguine that Mr. Nimrod, the mighty hunter, for a _saint_, was in morals as good as any of them. These clubs had also many improvements over ordinary societies. A candidate for membership was not obliged to ride a goat to get in, nor with bandaged eyes go down into a dangerous pit to search for the tables of stone that Moses brought home the ten commandments on. Neither had the clubs any use for a catechism of secret signs to let the brethren know when a member had been guilty of something unwelcome to society, and needed assistance. They were all Squirrel Hunters, and members recognized each other by the absence of society pins and want of superlative adjectives at the front end of their names. The only thing recorded in which these clubs resembled any other order or society was in having a great many glorious banquets. They cultivated the social and democratic principles, owing allegiance nowhere, to no one or any thing, but the government and country covered by the American flag. The objects of these clubs were the study of natural history and to secure and enforce all laws for the preservation of game beasts and birds, as well as the summer songsters that give life and happiness to forest and field. These clubs labored hard to enforce legislative enactments against pot-hunting and thoughtless destruction of birds, but found it more difficult to capture the violator and public opinion than to subdue British and Indians or frighten an army. People generally had embraced the idea that birds, beasts and trees could never become seriously decimated, and it was useless to offer them protection, which made it troublesome to obtain a verdict against offenders by either judge or jury. The motives of such prosecutions were generally misconstrued, or plaintiffs made subjects of sport or ridicule. The following is taken from the records and proceedings of one of the earliest organized and most worthy game clubs in Ohio. It appears the offender was a lawyer, who enjoyed fine grounds and an elegant garden, and amused himself shooting little birds that came to share his bounty, or obtain a pittance by way of interest for the good they had by nature rendered. The club gave the lawyer notice and request to desist such cruelty, or it might become necessary to call the attention of the officers of the law to the matter.