234 



THE GAME OK BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



just described, no doubt I should have completed up to ten or more waterbuck and 

 zebra, shot more hartebeest, and so saved more uncommon animals. 



Next, as to the expensive, or sportsman's licence. This should include all the 

 former animals, and, in addition, two or one of all the rarer animals, excepting any 

 particular species of animals that showed signs of becoming very scarce. These 

 latter might be included only on special licences, for which an extra fee should be 

 paid, or they could be preserved from time to time, as thought fit. 



Arrangements ought also to be made so as to permit of the sportsman's shooting 

 any additional animal over the number allowed, on payment of fees varying according 

 to the rarity or size of the animal. He cannot want multitudes of each kind of 

 easily shot buck and antelope. It is only with dangerous game, where the sport is 

 exciting, and with very wary game, where the sport requires skill, that any real 

 interest can be sustained to go on shooting any one sort of animal. By the 

 arrangement I have suggested, if the sportsman failed to get a good trophy by the 

 time he had exhausted the number allowed of any species, he could always take out 

 a special licence and shoot another and another of the animals until he had secured 

 what he wanted. Moreover, the shooting of a number of animals not really required, 

 but just shot to make up the number allowed, would thus be obviated, and so the 

 number of animals saved would exceed the number killed on special licences, and the 

 revenue accruing would be greater. 



If a sportsman can, as at present, afford to pay ;^5o for a licence, besides the 

 outlay required to undertake a shooting trip, he can easily afford a few extra pounds 

 for an extra head or two of some animal he is very keen to possess. He must not 

 think that he is being fleeced because he is a well-to-do sportsman, but must remember 

 that such an arrangement was made so as to keep out the men who really only 

 shoot for the sake of shooting, and who are not keen enough on a single trophy to 

 pay extra for it. The latter would shoot a kudu or eland if he could get it for 

 nothing, but as he cannot he shoots another zebra instead. 



The sportsman, by paying some few extra sums, would be helping to keep 

 enough of the desirable picked trophies in the country to give sport both to himself 

 and to his brother sportsmen. 



However, in the existing state of affairs, the sportsman has no guarantee that by 

 paying expensive licences and shooting moderately he is doing anything to preserve 

 picked animals for the future either for himself or for brother sportsmen. Rather is 

 it the reverse, for the land which he is paying to shoot over to-day may to-morrow 

 be divided up into farms, in which case his temperate and moderate shooting will have 

 benefited no one and he might as well have shot the best trophies himself. So the 



