INTRODUCTION 



hibited the export of horns and hides, and considered there 

 was no more to be said, entirely forgetting that there was, 

 and still is, a perfectly ready sale for them in the country, 

 and also quite shutting their eyes to the fact that the dried 

 meat trade is the essence of the whole matter and flourishes 

 as freely as ever. Previous to the above action by Govern- 

 ment I worked out, some years ago, for the information of 

 a high official, the details of the annual slaughter of deer, 

 from figures of the export of deer horns during a period 

 of seven years, and evolved some startling results. From 

 the Customs figures supplied to me of the weight of horns 

 exported for that period, namely, 6274 cwt. of spotted deer 

 horns and 4728 cwt. of elk horns, I subtracted, in the 

 case of spotted deer, 75 per cent, for shed horns, and in 

 the case of elk horns, 85 per cent., allowing i Ib. per pair 

 as the average weight of spotted deer antlers, and 3 Ib. 

 per pair for elk antlers. This worked out at a yearly 

 slaughter of 21,000 spotted bucks and 3300 buck elk; 

 and, touching the meat supply, you can safely add two 

 does for every buck to the above total of slain. It may 

 be said that I have taken a very low average weight for 

 the antlers, but, from my own experience, I very much 

 question if they will average more ; still, to be as fair as 

 possible, let us double the weight and thus halve the 

 slaughter, the figures then giving us 10,500 spotted buck 

 and 1650 buck elk shot y early ^ to which add 21,000 

 spotted does and 3300 doe elk shot for meat and hides, 

 and you have the appalling total of 36,450 deer slaughtered 

 yearly ! 



The figures sound incredible, especially when applied 

 to such a small country as Ceylon, being, as it is, not quite 

 so large as Ireland ; but when you come to consider the 

 number of guns licensed among the natives, it will be 



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