BRITISH COLUMBIA 57 



He may kill moose, caribou, wapiti, deer, or sheep 

 in the hottest weather, when he can only at most 

 eat a few pounds of meat, leave the rest to rot, and 

 go off and kill another ; he may kill the females 

 of all species during the breeding season, when the 

 meat is totally unfit for food ; he may kill females 

 with newly-born young, which are too small to look 

 after themselves ; he may kill pheasants, black-game, 

 partridges and other game birds, on their nests if 

 he chooses, and this almost within the city limits 

 of the biggest towns in the Province. Mr. Williams 

 tells me he has seen numbers of irresponsible men 

 riding along the trails in spring, when the deer are 

 in deplorable condition after a hard winter, and 

 almost too weak to get out of the way, taking pot- 

 shots at the poor brutes with revolvers, hardly 

 troubling to see whether they made a kill and never 

 following a wounded animal. Almost every district 

 which has had a mining excitement has had the game 

 almost entirely depleted in this manner. The more 

 outrageous offences have certainly been stopped to 

 some extent ; but there is still a great deal of this 

 sort of thing going on, and now that the laws are 

 being more strictly enforced many of these irre- 

 sponsible persons take out a miner's licence so as to 

 render themselves safe from prosecution. 



I am writing now of the condition of affairs some 

 two years ago. Whether things have altered since 

 I was in British Columbia I have not heard, but 

 the Government are much to blame for allowing 



