LH. x] PHOTECTION OF BIG GAME 239 



time, and there is at present no danger oC the extermina- 

 tion of the lord of all four-footed creatiu'es. Large 

 reserves have been established on which various herd- 

 of elephants now live what is, at least for the time 

 being, an entirely safe life. Furthermore, over great 

 tracts of territory outside the reserves regulations have 

 been promulgated which, if enibrced as they are now 

 enforced, will pre\ent any excessive diminution of tlie 

 lierds. In British East Africa, for instance, no cows 

 are allowed to be shot save for special purposes, as for 

 preservation in a museum, or to safeguard life and 

 property, and no bulls with tusks weighing less than 

 thirty pounds apiece. This renders safe almost all the 

 females and an ample supply of breeding males. Too 

 much praise cannot be gix-^en to the go^' ernments and the 

 individuals who have brought about this happy result ; 

 the credit belongs especially to England, and to various 

 Englishmen. It would be a veritable and most tragic 

 calamity if the lordly elephant, the giant among existing 

 four-footed creatures, should be permitted to vanish 

 from the face of the earth. 



But of course protection is not permanently possible 

 over the greater part of that country which is well fitted 

 for settlement ; nor anywhere, if tlie herds grow too 

 numerous. It would be not merely silly, but worse 

 tlian silly, to try to stop all killing of elephants. The 

 unchecked increase of any big and formidable wild 

 beast, even though not a Hesh-eater, is incompatible 

 with the existence of man when he has emerged from 

 the stage of lowest savagery. This is not a matter of 

 theory, but of proved fact. In place after place in 

 Africa where protection has been extended to hippo- 

 potamus or buffalo, rhinoceros or elephant, it has been 

 found necessary to withdraw it because the protected 



