208 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



as Boers. The fact is, the pioneers of all the white 

 races of North-Western Europe in new countries 

 are tarred with the same brush, as far as the ex- 

 termination of wild animals is concerned. In North 

 America the western frontiers-men, who were largely 

 of British descent, exterminated in a few short years 

 the countless herds of bison ; in South Africa the 

 Boers have exterminated or brought to the verge of 

 extinction many species of animals which but a few 

 decades ago were spread over the face of the land 

 in seemingly inexhaustible numbers ; and to-day 

 the inhabitants of Newfoundland are hard at work 

 destroying as fast as they can the great herds of 

 seals which annually assemble in the early spring 

 to bring- forth their young on the ice floes off the 

 coast of Labrador. 



When human greed of gain is added to the old love 

 of hunting, and both are unrestrained by legislation, 

 the speedy extermination of any beast or bird which 

 has any market value must necessarily follow. The 

 errors of the past can never be retrieved, but it is to 

 be hoped that now that every part of the world has 

 been taken under the protection of some civilised 

 state, no species of animal or bird which still sur- 

 vives in any considerable numbers will be allowed 

 to become extinct. The white man, whether Boer 

 or Briton, is now effectually restrained from taking 

 any further part in lessening the numbers of the 

 giraffes in the countries to the west of Southern 

 Rhodesia and to the north of the Limpopo, which 

 are under British protection, and if only the native 

 Bechwana hunters from Molipololi, Palapye, and 

 Denukana who are well-mounted and armed with 

 breech-loading rifles were forbidden by their chiefs 

 to kill more than a certain fixed number of giraffes 

 annually, and severely punished for exceeding the 

 limit allowed, I see no reason why these most in- 

 teresting animals should not survive for all time, 



