American Big Game In Its Haunts 



more than sixty millions of acres of such reservations. 

 These consist largely of rough, timbered mountain 

 lands, unfit for cultivation or settlement. They are 

 of enormous value to the arid West, as affording an 

 unfailing water supply to much of that region, and 

 in a less degree they are valuable as timber reserves, 

 from which hereafter may be harvested crops which 

 will greatly benefit the country adjacent to them. 



In the first volume of the Boone and Crockett Club 

 Books, it was said : "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 these indigenous mammals. If this care is pro- 

 vided, no species of American large game need ever 

 become absolutely extinct ; and intelligent effort for 

 game protection may well be directed toward secur- 

 ing, through national legislation, the policing of 

 forest preserves by timber and game wardens." 

 — ^American Big Game Hunting, p. 330. 



When these lines were written, Congressional 

 action in this direction was hoped for at an early day ; 

 but, except in the case of the Yellowstone National 

 Park, such action has not been taken. Meantime, 

 hunting in these forest reserves has gone on. In 

 some of them game has been almost exterminated. 

 Two little bunches of buffalo which then had their 

 range within the reserves have been swept out of 

 existence. 



It is obvious that effectively to protect the big 

 game at large there must be localities where hunting 

 shall be absolutely forbidden. That any species of 



444 



