154 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



Africa we collected series of the white rhinoceros and whale- 

 headed storks, because It was of great importance to have 

 them well represented, for purpose of study as well as for 

 general interest, in our National Museum; but nothing 

 could have persuaded us to kill an individual of either 

 species wantonly or merely for the sake of a personal 

 trophy. The only warrant, but the ample warrant, for 

 collecting them was to use them in great public museums, 

 where they were indispensably necessary. In other words, 

 we collected them precisely as Mr. Hornaday, some twenty- 

 four years previously, had collected a score of American 

 bison; just as he later collected white goats, and at an 

 earlier date fine series of the orang-outang in Borneo, 

 and of the elephant and gaur in India. We mention Mr. 

 Hornaday, because no man in the United States has done 

 more than he has done in battling for the preservation of 

 our wild life, and because there is no man living who would 

 be less capable of killing any wild creature wantonly, or 

 without full warrant. He rendered a greatly needed serv- 

 ice to science when he collected the bison above men- 

 tioned, and when he collected his specimens in India and 

 Borneo; and we did the same kind of work in Africa. 



We mention the attack of this little paper, the very name 

 of which we have forgotten, for two reasons: In the first 

 place, it represents the kind of folly which tends to discredit 

 a good cause, and therefore does real harm; in the next place, 

 it encourages similar attacks by sinister creatures who can- 

 not even give the poor excuse of good intentions for their 

 actions. Doubtless, the paper in question was merely silly. 

 But well across the continent, in Denver, there was another 

 paper nominally devoted, In part, to the same cause, which 



