208 HUNTING CAMPS. 



the settlers in the country and practically none upon 

 the Indians, who act as if it did not exist. As to the 

 settlers, when a man has shot his own five he goes on to 

 shoot for his friends, and if either Indian or settler sees 

 a stag with a fine head he shoots it for its horns, not to 

 keep, but to sell. 



As I have said in a previous chapter the only possible 

 way even to partially stop this wholesale slaughter 

 would be to forbid the private sale or exposure for sale 

 of trophies in shops. This should be the first aim of 

 any code of game laws, the more especially as the 

 demand for trophies is becoming greater and greater 

 every year. Nor would it bear hardly upon the 

 settler or the Indian, for little enough of the ultimate 

 price falls to their share ; the bulk goes to fill the 

 capacious pockets of the middlemen taxidermists, 

 and until these facts are taken into account by the 

 framers of game laws there will be no real game 

 protection. 



How can there be, when every stag with a good head 

 is shot down ? It will be contended that this is precisely 

 what the sportsman does. True, but the number he 

 can kill is closely limited, and he shoots according to 

 certain rules the rules of the game. He is the man 

 who brings not only money into the country, but know- 

 ledge, and also a very real, if to some extent a selfish, 

 interest in the maintenance of wild animal life. Yet it 

 is practically always against him that modern game laws 

 are directed, instead of against the pot-hunter. The 

 latter is the man whose works live after him. He has 

 already devastated more than one country. Antlers 

 and hide mean so much money to him, no more ; 

 the extinction of a species is no cause of regret to him 



