ANIMAL SANCTUARIES IN LABRADOR 473 



human interest to make them priceless as a possession for 

 ourselves and a heritage for all who come after. 



Sanctuaries 



A sanctuary may be defined as a place where man is passive 

 and the rest of Nature active. Till quite recently Nature had 

 her own sanctuaries where man either did not go at all or only 

 as a tool-using animal in comparatively small numbers. But 

 now, in this machinery age, there is no place left where man 

 cannot go with overwhelming forces at his command. He can 

 strangle to death all the nobler wild life in the world to-day. 

 To-morrow he certainly will have done so, unless he exercise 

 due foresight and self-control in the meantime. There is not 

 the slightest doubt that birds and mammals are now being killed 

 off much faster than they can breed. And it is always the largest 

 and noblest forms of life that suffer most. The whales and 

 elephants, lions and eagles go ; the rats and flies and all mean 

 parasites remain. This is inevitable in certain cases. But it is 

 wanton killing off that I am speaking of. Civilised man begins 

 by destroying the very forms of wild life he learns to appreciate 

 most when he becomes still more civilised. The obvious remedy 

 is to begin conservation at an earlier stage, when it is easier and 

 better in every way, by enforcing laws for close seasons, game 

 preserves, the selective protection of certain species and sanc- 

 tuaries. I have just defined a sanctuary as a place where man 

 is passive and the rest of Nature active. But this general 

 definition is too absolute for any special case. The mere fact 

 that man has to protect a sanctuary does away with his purely 

 passive attitude. Then, he can be beneficially active by de- 

 stroying pests and parasites like bot-flies or mosquitoes and by 

 finding antidotes for diseases like the epidemic which periodically 

 kills off the rabbits and thus starves many of the carnivora to 

 death. But, except in cases where experiment has proved his 

 intervention to be beneficial, the less he upsets the balance 

 of Nature the better, even when he tries to be an earthly 

 Providence. 



In itself a sanctuary is a kind of wild " zoo " on a gigantic 

 scale and under ideal conditions. As such it appeals to every- 

 one interested in animals, from the greatest zoologist to the mere 

 holiday tourist. Before concluding I shall give facts to show 



