The Creating of Game Refuges 



man is involved by their presence, the experience 

 in the Yellowstone National Park is that there is 

 no such danger ; when allowed to do so, they draw 

 their rations as meekly as a converted Apache; if 

 they err at all, it is on the side of exaggerated and 

 rather pitiful humility. 



It is mainly with the deer, however, that we are 

 concerned. It is out of the question for any think- 

 ing man who takes the slightest interest in these 

 creatures to stand passively by and permit them to 

 be exterminated. To prevent such a catastrophe 

 proper measures must be taken. The hunting 

 community increases with as great rapidity as that 

 with which game decreases. Where one man 

 hunted twenty-five years ago, a score hunt for big 

 game to-day. Unfortunately it has become the 

 fashion. It is a diversion involving no danger 

 and, for those that understand it, but slight hard- 

 ship. If people are to continue to have this 

 source of amusement, some well matured and con- 

 certed plan must be devised to insure the con- 

 tinuance of game. Never in the past history of 

 the world has man held at his command the same 

 potential control of wild beasts as now, the same 

 power to concentrate against them the forces of 

 science. Man's supremacy has advanced by leaps 

 and bounds, while the animal's power to escape re- 



413 



