4 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



sport would have no flavour and its pri/es no value. The mere 

 fact that a man can kill as many of any particular kind of animal 

 as he pleases should be sufficient to make him let that beast 

 alone, unless he wants it for food, as soon as he has secured 

 (say) a couple of fine specimen heads. Finally, to look at this 

 question from the lowest and most selfish standpoint, the 

 wholesale slaughter of wild game in foreign countries should 

 be discouraged unanimously by all who love the rifle, since 

 men who kill or boast of having killed exceptionally large bags 

 of big game in any country are extremely likely to arouse the 

 natural and proper indignation of local legislators, who have it 

 in their power to close their happy hunting grounds to all 

 aliens for the fault of a few individuals, not by any means 

 typical of, or in sympathy with, their class. 



On the other hand, it would be well if some of those of our 

 own race, who should know better, would be less ready to call 

 other men butchers merely because they have killed large 

 quantities of game. Everything depends upon the circum- 

 stances connected with the slaying. If a man needs and can 

 utilise a hundred antelope, surely he has as good a right to 

 kill them as if he were killing a hundred sheep for market. 

 There are occasions when not only does the hunter's skill win 

 the regard of savages who value nothing in friend or foe 

 more than real manhood, but it is absolutely necessary to kill 

 game in order to keep a native following in food. Without 

 the hunter's skill, food would have to be bought or looted 

 from hostile natives, a feud engendered which might end in 

 the shedding of other blood than that of the beasts, and a 

 serious obstacle be thus raised in the path of the pioneers of 

 civilisation and trade. 



Our big game sportsmen have made more friends than 

 foes, have always contrived to feed their men, and the very 

 greatest of them have never shed a drop of native blood. 

 Where gallant Oswell or Selous have been, there are no blood 

 feuds against the English to hamper an expedition of their 

 countrymen. 



