With Mashlight aiul Ritic ^ 



The fur of a sea-otter is now worth over ,/i"iOo; but a 

 complete skin of this animal, such as could \)(- (exhibited 

 in a museum, has tor years past been unobtainabk; ! 



War to the knife was long declared against whales 

 — the largest mammals of our time. (The popular notion 

 that they are hsh seems, by the way, almost ineradicable.) 

 But for long they were able to escajje complete annihila- 

 tion in Arctic regions, their capture invoKdng the death 

 of so many determined men engaged in the struggle. 

 Now, howev^er, that the harpoon is no longer slung by 

 the experienced whaler, but is shot into the whale's body 

 out of a cannon ; now that whaling has become a science, 

 carried out with the most elaborate and highly finished 

 im|)lements, the last whale will very soon have dis- 

 appeared. 



" Very soon " ; for what are a few centuries, when 

 we think of the long ages which were needed tor the 

 evolution of the whale to its present tbrm ? Large 

 "schools" of whales are still to be seen in the Arctic 

 regions, and still redden the waters, year in, \ ear out. 

 with their blood, shed in a tlitiU' conflict with an over- 

 powering enemy. ]>ut soon all this will belong to the 

 realm of legend and tradition, and in luturc; times man 

 will stand in wonder before the scanty specimens to be 

 t"()und in the muscaims, [)reserved tJKTcin thanks t(_) the 

 t(jresight of a tew. 



It is shocking and distressing to realise the niimlier 

 of instances of the same- kind of slaughter among 

 horned animals. A lew decades ago millions of .Xmerlcan 

 bisons i^Bisoii diroii) roamed over their wide prairies. 



4 



