American Big Game in its Haunts 



vanquished enemy. When we think of the enor- 

 mous period of time, involving millions of years, 

 required to develop a creature of such gigantic 

 strength as the California grizzly, so splendidly 

 equipped to win his living and to maintain his 

 unquestioned supremacy — the Sequoia of the ani- 

 mal kingdom of America — and when we contem- 

 plate this creature as the very embodiment of 

 vitality in the wild life, we shall not wantonly 

 permit him to be exterminated, and thus deprive 

 those who are to come after us of seeing him alive, 

 and of seeing him where his presence adds a fine 

 note of distinction to the landscape, a fitting ad- 

 junct to the glacier-formed ravines of the Sierras. 

 The domestic sheep, which were once the prey 

 of the bears, no longer range in these 

 forests, and so far as the depredation of bears 

 among cattle is concerned. It Is of so trifling 

 a nature as practically not to exist. It would seem 

 that a nation of so vast wealth as ours could 

 afford to Indulge In an occasional extravagance, 

 such as keeping alive these few remaining bears; 

 of maintaining them at the public expense simply 

 for the gratification of curiosity, of a quite legit- 

 imate curiosity on the part of those who love the 

 wild life, and every last vanishing trait that re- 

 mains of Its old, keen energy. So far as danger to 



412 



