OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 233 



would be a thundering "No!" Says Major J* Stevenson- 

 Hamilton in his "Animal Life in xAfrica": 'It is impossible 

 to contemplate the use against the lion of any other weapon 

 than the rifle." 



The real sportsmen and naturalists of America are de- 

 cidedly opposed to the extermination of the grizzly bear. 

 They feel that the wilds of North America are wide enough 

 for the accommodation of many grizzlies, without crowding 

 the proletariat. A Rocky Mountain without a grizzly upon 

 it, or at least a bear of some kind, is only half a mountain — 

 commonplace and tame. Put one two-year-old grizzly cub 

 upon it, and presto! every cubic yard of its local atmosphere 

 reeks with romantic uncertainty and fearsome thrills. 



A few persons have done considerable talking and writing 

 about the damage to stock inflicted by bears, but I think 

 there is little justification for such charges. Certainly there 

 is not one-tenth enough real damage done by bears to justify 

 their extermination. At the present time we hear that the 

 farmers (!) of Kadiak Island, Alaska, are being seriously 

 harassed and damaged by the big Kadiak bear — an animal 

 so rare and shy that it is very difficult for a sportsman to 

 kill one ! I think the charges against the bears — if the Kadiak 

 Islanders ever really have made any — need to be proven, by 

 the production of real evidence. 



In the United States, outside of our game preserves, I 

 know of not one locality in which grizzly bears are sufficiently 

 numerous to justify a sportsman in going out to hunt them. 

 The California grizzly, once represented by 'Monarch" in 

 Golden Gate Park, is almost, if not wholly, extinct. In 



