290 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



thoughtless sportsmen, and wild sheep and goats are being 

 driven to the utmost limits of their range." 



After alluding to the diminution of animals in other 

 countries, and especially game animals and those killed for 

 economic reasons, the author continues : 



" And to us who are Zoologists, the vast destruction of 

 invertebrate life, the sweeping out, as forests are cleared and 

 the soil tilled, of innumerable species that are not even 

 named or described is a real calamity. I do not wish to 

 appeal to sentiment. Man is worth many sparrows ; he is 

 worth all the animal population of the globe, and if there 

 were not room for both, the animals must go. I will pass no 

 judgment on those who find the keenest pleasure of life in 

 gratifying the primeval instinct of sport. I will admit that 

 there is no better destiny for the lovely plumes of a rare bird 

 than to enhance the beauty of a beautiful woman. . . . But 

 I do not admit the right of the present generation to care- 

 less indifference or to wanton destruction. Each generation 

 is the guardian of the existing resources of the world ; it has 

 come into a great inheritance, but only as a trustee. We are 

 learning to preserve the relics of early civilizations, and the 

 rude remains of man's primitive arts and crafts. Every 

 civilized nation spends great sums on painting and sculpture, 

 on libraries and museums. Living animals are of older 

 lineage, more perfect craftsmanship, and greater beauty than 

 any of the creations of man. And although we value the 

 work of our forefathers, we do not doubt but that the 

 generations yet unborn will produce their own artists and 

 writers, who may equal or surpass the artists and writers 

 of the past. But there is no resurrection or recovery of an 

 extinct species, and it is not merely that here and there one 

 species out of many is threatened, but that whole genera, 

 families, and orders are in danger." 



The late Lord Salisbury was one of the first British 

 statesmen to take up the question of the preservation of 

 wild animals. Lord Salisbury had been a former President 

 of the British Association. In 1889 he arranged for a 

 convention of the Great Powers interested in Africa to con- 

 sider the question of the protection to be afforded to what 

 some unscientific members of the Civil Service designated 

 as the " Wild Animals, Birds and Fish " (a nomenclature 

 which has been continued in subsequent Game Acts) of 

 Africa. This convention did some good pioneer work, but 



