8 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



"I know no way of judging the future but by the 

 past." To-day the question is, Shall we sensibly 

 apply the lessons of the past to the problems of 

 to-day? 



It is natural for man to believe that the resources 

 of nature are inexhaustible. The wish is father to 

 the thought. The theory is comforting, because it 

 helps to salve the conscience of the man who com- 

 mits high crimes against wild beasts, and birds and 

 forests. 



In the days of buffalo abundance, the Cree 

 Indians firmly believed that the buffalo herds issued 

 from a great cavern in the earth, and that the 

 supply was quite inexhaustible. The greedy and 

 merciless white buffalo-hunter was so busy with 

 slaughter that he never troubled himself to think 

 about the source of the buffalo supply, or its prob- 

 able continuance. He said, over and over, "There 

 will always be plenty of buffalo!" 



And yet, four years of slaughter, in the early 

 seventies, wiped out the millions of the great 

 southern bison herd; and just ten years later 

 another four years of hide-hunting exterminated 

 the northern herd. Such was the fate of the most 

 numerous, the most conspicuous and most valuable 

 land animal of North America, and the one whose 

 millions were rivaled only by those of the barren- 

 ground caribou. 



It is desirable and necessary that every person 

 living should know that systematic slaughter will 



