-^ 



'llic Siir\'i\-ors 



secLirinij^ wcll-developctl male specimens, as the hiiiucr dues, 

 but also females and )'ounn" animals in all the \arious stages 

 of growth and colouring. This must be obvious even to 

 a child, and no one will deny to science the right so to act, 

 at least in those regions of Africa which — in comparison 

 with India and other countries — are still untouched by civili- 

 sation, and which therefore, in their primitive unchanged 

 condition, aftbrd us doubly interesting results. Now sup- 

 posing one has got together large collections, and has been 

 so fortunate as to succeed in bringing them down to the 

 coast and home to Europe. A collection of insects or of 

 the lower animals may pass without remark ; but woe to 

 the slayer of the larger species of wild animals ! These 

 come under the description of " beasts of the chase, ' and 

 now a peculiar kind ot bacillus quickly develops — the 

 bacillus of "hostility to the hunter," which, introduced into 

 Europe from the tropics, finds here, too, a fostering soil. 

 Let me be allowed to endeavour to find a prophylactic 

 against this bacillus in these essays. I have already often 

 laid stress upon the facts that such great quantities of the 

 skins and featht^rs of birds are exported for the purposes 

 of fashion, that by this trade whole species are threatened 

 with extinction ; that every individual European is allowed, 

 without any hindrance, to send home his trophies of the 

 chase — trophies which, with only a few exceptions, can 

 liave hardly any value for science ; above all, that the 

 extermination of the elephant in Africa is being carried out 

 before our very eyes for the sake of his ivory ; and that all 

 this is held permissible. But let one make collections for 

 scientific purposes, and scrupulously hand over every skin, 



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