ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY 3 



mountain passes, through which in later days the locomotives 

 will rush and the world's less venturous spirits come in time to 

 reap their harvests and make fortunes in the footsteps of those 

 who ask nothing better than to spend their strength and wealth 

 in the first encounter with an untrodden world, living as hard 

 as wolves, and content to think themselves rich in the pos- 

 session of a few gnarled horns and grizzled hides. As for us 

 who are Englishmen, it is well for us to remember that in most 

 lands in which we shoot we are but guests, and the beasts we 

 hunt are not only the property of the natives, but one of their 

 most important sources of food supply. Bearing this in mind, 

 we should be moderate in the toll we take of the great game, 

 and considerate even of those who may not be strong enough 

 to enforce their wishes. The recklessness of one man in a 

 country where foreigners are few may suffice to damn a whole 

 nation in the eyes of a prejudiced people, and it is worth 

 while to recollect that any one of us who strays off the world's 

 beaten tracks may serve for a type of his nation to men who 

 have never seen another sample of an Englishman. 



Looked at from any point of view, the wholesale slaughter 

 of big game must be condemned by every thinking man. The 

 sportsman who in one season is lucky enough to obtain a dozen 

 good heads does no harm to anybody, and probably does good 

 to the bands of game in his district by killing off the oldest of 

 the stags or rams. But the man who kills fifty or a hundred 

 foolish ' rhinos ' (beasts, according to Mr. Jackson, which any 

 man can stalk) in one year, or scores of cariboo at the crossings 

 during their annual migration in Newfoundland, or deer and 

 sheep by the hundred in America, shocks humanity and does 

 a grave injury to his class. The waste of good meat is quite 

 intolerable ; kindly natured men hate to hear of the infliction 

 of needless pain, and waste of innocent animal life ; good 

 sportsmen recoil in disgust from a record of butchery misnamed 

 sport, for, according to the very first article of their creed, it is 

 the difficulty of the chase which gives value to the trophies. 

 If there were no difficulties, no dangers, no hardships, then the 



