do 



NATURE 



[November 9, 1911 



feneration. Investigations are being continued on the 

 inheritance of a mutation in the foxglove. Investigations 

 into the inheritance of colour in Primula sinensis have been 

 carried further, and attention has been paid to the genetics 

 of parti-coloured and flaked types. The inheritance of an 

 abnormal type of flower in the wallflower is being investi- 

 gated, and experiments are also being made with a putative 

 hybrid between two species of Taraxacum. Mrs. Thoday 

 has continued her experiments on the nature and inherit- 

 ance of the yellow tinge in the sweet pea. (2) Botanical 

 photographs. A second list of photographs collected by the 

 committee has been printed and distributed to the botanical 

 members of the association. By this means it is hoped 

 that the collection will become more widely known, and 

 used for teaching and other purposes. (3) A botanical, 

 zoological, and geological survey of Clare Island. It is 

 hoped that the survey will be completed by the end of the 

 present year. (4) The structure of fossil plants. (5) On a 

 national flora. 



ANIMAL SANCTUARIES IN LABRADOR.' 



A SANCTUARY may be defined as a place where man \ 

 is passive and the rest of nature active. Until quite '■ 

 recently Nature had her own sanctuaries, where man 

 either did not go at all or only as a tool-using animal in 

 comparatively small numbers. But now, in this machinery 

 age, there is no place left where man cannot go with over- 

 whelming forces at his command. He can strangle to 

 death all the nobler wild life in the world to-day. To- 

 morrow he certainly will have done so unless he exercises 

 due foresight and self-control in the meantime. There is 

 not the slightest doubt that birds and mammals are now 

 being killed off much faster than they can breed. And it 

 is always the largest and noblest forms of life that suffer 

 most. The whales and elephants, lions and eagles, go. 

 The rats and flies, and all mean parasites, remain. This 

 is inevitable in certain cases. But it is wanton killing 

 off that I am now describing. Civilised man begins by 

 destroying the very forms of wild life he learns to 

 appreciate most when he becomes still more civilised. The 

 obvious remedy is to begin conservation at an earlier 

 stage, when it is easier and better in every way, by 

 enforcing laws for close seasons, game preserves, the 

 selective protection of certain species, and sanctuaries. 

 The mere fact that man has to protect a sanctuary does 

 away with his purely passive attitude. Then he can be 

 beneficially active by destroying pests and parasites, like 

 bot-flies or mosquitoes, and by finding antidotes for 

 diseases like the epidemic which periodically kills off the 

 rabbits, and thus starves many of the Carnivora to death. 

 But, except in cases where experiment has proved his 

 intervention to be beneficial, the less he upsets the balance 

 of nature the better, even when he tries to be an earthly 

 Providence. 



The strongest of all arguments is that sanctuaries, far 

 from conflicting with other interests, actually further them. 

 But unless we make these sanctuaries soon we shall be 

 infamous for ever as the one generation which defrauded 

 posterity of all the preservable wild life that nature took 

 a million years to evolve into its present beautiful perfec- 

 tion. Onlv a certain amount of animal life can exist in a 



Incas of Peru, Gardiner Island in the United ^ 

 the Bass Rock of! the coast of Scotland. 



Yet I do not ignore the diflficulties. First, ih<r»: 

 universal difliculty of introducing or enforcing laws 

 there have been no operative laws before. Next, tli 

 the diflTiculty of arousing public opinion on any hu 

 however worthy, which requires both insight and for. 

 Then we must remember that protected species inci 

 beyond their special means of subsistence have t(. 

 other kinds of food, sometimes with unfortunate rcbult- 

 And then there are the several special difTiculties coi 

 nected with Labrador. 



But in spite of all difficulties, I firmly believe th. 

 Labrador is by far the best country in the world for t! 

 best kinds of sanctuary. Labrador decidedly impro\' 

 acquaintance. The fogs have been grossly exagg. ' 

 The Atlantic seaboard is clearer than the British 

 which, bv the way, lie in exactly the same lat/ 

 And the Gulf is far clearer than New Brunswick, S.. 

 Scotia, and the Banks. The climate is exceptional 

 healthy, the air a most invigorating tonic, and the cnVi • 

 greater than in many a civilised northern land. B 

 there is a considerable range of temperature in a cu 

 the extreme north and south of which lie 1000 miles apa. 

 one in the latitude of Greenland, the other in that 

 Paris. 



Most of Labrador is a rocky tableland, still rising fro 

 the depths, with some old beaches as much as 1500 f' 

 above the present level of the sea. The St. Lawrence S' 

 board is famous for its rivers and forests. The .^tlan 

 seaboard has the same myriads of islands, is magnificent 

 bold, is pierced by fiords unexcelled in Norway, .1 

 crowned by mountains higher than any others east of 1 

 Rockies. This vast country is accessible by sea on thr 

 sides, and will soon be accessible b^- land on the foui i 

 \ It lies directly half-way between Great Britain and <• 

 ' own North West, and is 1000 miles nearer London tl: 

 New York is. Its timber, mines, and water-power ^ 

 be increasingly exploited. It should also become incrf . 

 ingly attractive to the best type of tourist, naturalist, ar, i 

 sportsman. 



The fauna is much more richly varied than people v. 

 think of Labrador as nothing but an Arctic barren 

 inclined to suppose. The fisheries have been known ; 

 : centuries, especially the cod, which has a prerogative rii:' • 

 to the simple word " fish." There are herring and lobst •■ 

 in the Gulf, plenty of salmon and trout in most of • 

 rivers, winninish in all the tributary waters of the Han 

 : ton, as well as in Lake St. John, whitefish in the lak 

 i and so forth. Then the stone-carrying chub is one of ■ 

 most interesting creatures in the world. 



Yet I must not forget the " flies " — who that has ' 

 them once can ever forget them? The bot-fly infests 

 caribou, and will probably infest the reindeer. The bl. 

 i fly and mosquito attack both man and beast in madd 

 ing millions. 



Labrador has more than 200 species of birds, from 

 humming-birds and sanderlings to eagles, gannets, loon?, 

 and herons. 



Both the land and sea mammals are of great import- 

 ance. Several whales are well known. The right whaile is 

 almost exterminated, but the Greenland, or bow-head, is 

 found along the edge of the ice in all Hudsonian waters. 



certain area. The surplus must go outside. So sanctuaries -pj^g pollock is rare^ and the sperm, or cachalot, as nearly 



are more than wild "zoos"; they are overflowing exterminated .is the right. But the little-piked, or rostrafa. 



reservoirs, fed by their own springs, and feeding streams jj found inshore along the north and east, the bottle-nose 



of life at every outlet. I might mention many instances ^^^ ^Y^^ north, the humpback on the east and south, and 



of successful sanctuaries, permanent or temporary, abso- ^^^ finback and sulphur-bottom are common and widely 



lute or modified — the Algonquin, Rocky Mountains, Yoho, distributed, especiallv on the east. The little white whale. 



Glacier, Jasper and Laurentides in Canada; the Yellow- ^^ "white porpoise.' is fairlv common all round; the 



stone. Yosemite, Grand Canon, Olympus, and Superior in 1 j^jUgr jg widely distributed, but most numerous on the 



the United States ; with the sea-lions of California, the ; ^^^^ where the narwhal is also found. The harbour and 



wonderful revival of ibex in Spain and deer in Maine and 

 New Brunswick, the great preserves in Uganda, India, 

 and Ceylon, the selective work of Baron von Berlepsch in 

 Germany, the curious result of taboo protection up the 

 Nelson River, and the effects on seafowl in cases so far 

 apart in time and space as the Guano Islands under the 



' From an addre-s presented by Lie \t. -Colonel William Wood Vfore the 

 --econd annnnl meeting of the Commiss'on on Coi»servation held at Quebec. 



striped porpoises, and the common and bottle-nosed 

 dolphins, are chiefly on the east and south. There are 

 six seals, the harbour, ringed, harp, bearded, grey, and 

 hooded. The walrus, formerly abundant all round, is now 

 rarelv seen except in the far north, where he is fast 

 decreasing. 



Moose may feel their way in by the south-west to an 

 increasing extent, and might possibly be reinforced by the 



NO. 2193, VOL. 88] 



