OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 235 



vey only in short periods, say of three or four years each. 

 Naturally, the skin-hunters of Alaska ardently desire the 

 skins of those bears, for the money they represent. That 

 side of the bear problem does not in the least appeal to the 

 ninety-odd millions of people who live this side of Alaska. 

 The skins of the Alaskan brown bears have little value save 

 as curiosities, nailed upon the wall, where they cannot be 

 stepped upon and injured. The hunting of those bears, how- 

 ever, is a business for men; and it is partly for that reason 

 they should be preserved. A bear-hunt on the Alaska Penin- 

 sula, Admiralty or Montagu Islands, is an event of a lifetime, 

 and with a bag limit of one brown bear the species would be 

 quite safe from extermination. 



The Black Bear is an interesting citizen. As a rule, he 

 harms nobody nor anything; he affords good sport; he ob- 

 jects to being exterminated, and wherever in North America 

 he is threatened with extermination he should at once re- 

 ceive protection! A black bear in the wilds is harmless. In 

 captivity, posed as a household 'pet," he is decidedly dan- 

 gerous and had best be given the middle of the road. In 

 big forests he is a persistent resident, and will not be exter- 

 minated from the fauna of the United States during the next 

 quarter-century. 



Conclusion.- -The logical conclusion to be drawn from the 

 persistent destruction of the big game of North America 

 is that Congress should immediately make every national 

 forest a national game preserve, in which, for the present at 

 least, no hunting should be allowed save the hunting of 

 highly destructive predatory animals. 



