322 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



seen how little chance even thick-skinned 

 animals stand against such weapons. 



The work of extermination is going on all 

 around, and not merely in the big game 

 countries with which we are here chiefly con- 

 cerned. Unfortunately, the rarer a creature 

 becomes the higher is the price put on it by 

 collectors, who thus bribe hordes of robbers 

 to invade Nature's sanctuaries in search of 

 their ill-gotten booty. The large copper 

 butterfly and many beautiful orchids were 

 exterminated in this way. Nor are even 

 dangerous animals without their uses, and 

 the American Government has found itself 

 compelled to protect the Florida alligator 

 from the greed of the skin-hunters, because 

 it was realised that the disappearance of the 

 alligator was followed by an intolerable in- 

 crease in the numbers of rats and other rodents 

 ruinous to the crops. The case of the fur-seal 

 does not come within the scope of a book con- 

 cerned with big game, any more than that of 

 the whalebone whale, but both have been 

 wastefully slaughtered, the disappearance of 

 the seal having been the subject of inter- 

 national conferences and conventions for the 

 more thrifty conduct of pelagic sealing. 



As has been shown, there are three means 

 of staying the destruction of big game. The 

 first is by imposing a heavy licence, whereby 



