Preface 



supplemented bylaws of the States in which the reservations lie. The 

 timber and the game ought to be made the absolute property of the 

 Government, and it should be constituted a punishable offense to 

 appropriate such property within the limits of the reservation. The 

 game and timber on a reservation should be regarded as Government 

 property, just as are the mules and the cordwood at an army post. If 

 it is a crime to take the latter, it should be a crime to plunder a forest 

 reservation. 



In these reservations is to be found to-day every species of large 

 game known to the United States, and the proper protection of the 

 reservations means the perpetuating in full supply of all the indigenous 

 mammals. If this care is provided, no species of American large game 

 need ever become absolutely extinct ; and intelligent effort for game 

 protection may well be directed toward securing through national 

 legislation the policing of forest preserves by timber and game 

 wardens. 



A really remarkable phenomenon in Ameri- 

 can animal life, described in the paper on the 

 Yellowstone Park Protection Act, is the atti- 

 tude now assumed toward mankind by the 

 bears, both grizzly and black, in the Yellow- 

 stone National Park. The preservation of the 

 game in the Park has unexpectedly resulted in 

 turning a great many of the bears into scav- 

 engers for the hotels within the Park limits. 

 Their tameness and familiarity are astonishing; 

 they act much more like hogs than beasts of 

 prey. Naturalists now have a chance of study- 

 ing their character from an entirely new stand- 

 point, and under entirely new conditions. It 

 would be well worth the while of any student 



