EXTIRPATION OF WILD QUADRUPEDS. 93 



the comparative inaccessibility of liis favorite haunts, Colani of 

 Pontresina, who died in 1837, had killed not less than 2,000 of 

 these animals ; Kiing, who is stUl living in the Upper Engadine, 

 1,500 ; Hitz, 1,300, and Zwichi an equal number ; Soldani shot 

 1,100 or 1,200 in the mountains which enclose the Yal BregagHa, 

 and there are many living hunters who can boast of having killed 

 from 500 to 800 of these interesting quadrupeds.* According 

 to the Neue Alpervpost, YY9 chamois were shot in the Grisons in 

 1876, and it is added that, from a comparison of these figures 

 with those of preceding years, the conclusion is that the number 

 of chamois is rather increasiug than diminishing in the districts 

 open to sportsmen. In the same Canton, were killed, during the 

 same year, 4 bears, 5 vultures, 4 eagles, 15 owls, 69 spaiTow- 

 hawks, 324 magpies, and 1 otter. 



In America, the chase of the larger quadrupeds is not less i 

 destructive. In a late number of the American Naturalist^ the 

 present annual slaughter of the bison is calculated at the enormous 

 number of 500,000, and the elk, the moose, the caribou, and the 

 more famiHar species of deer furnish, perhaps, as many victims. 

 The most fortunate deer-hunter I have personally known in New 

 England had kiUed only 960 ; but in the northern part of the 

 State of New York a single sportsman is said to have shot 1,500, 

 and this number has been doubtless exceeded by zealous ISTimrods 

 of the West. 



But so far as numbers are concerned, the statistics of the fur- 1 

 trade furnish the most surprising results. Russia sends annually 

 to foreign markets not less than 20,000,000 squirrel skins. Great 

 Britain has sometimes imported from South America 600,000 

 nutria skins in a year. The Leipzig market receives annually 

 nearly 200,000 ermine, and the Hudson Bay Company is said to 

 have occasionally burnt 20,000 ermine skins in order that the 

 market might not be overstocked. A late Parliamentary Report 

 estimates the annual consumption in England of the skins of the 



* Although it is only in the severest cold of winter that the chamois descends 

 to the vicinity of grounds occupied by man, its organization does not confine 

 it to the mountains. In the royal park of Racconigi, on the plain a few miles 

 from Turin, at a height of less than 1,000 feet, is kept a herd of thirty or forty 

 ■chamois, which thrives and breeds apparently as well as in the Alps. 



