224 THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



As to the number and the size of elephants that it is advisable to allow any one 

 man to shoot, this can be effected by legislation without its being necessary to abuse 

 hunters who used to shoot over the same ground before such legislation was enforced. 



From all accounts of elephant-hunting, however, though always a hard pursuit, I 

 cannot help thinking that the elephant used to be more accessible than he is now. 

 Comparatively speaking, it is only recently that such great store has been put on his 

 tusks. Since that time, however, the animal has been hunted without respite by both 

 white and black sportsmen all over Africa. It would have been odd if such continued 

 persecution had not had the effect of making him more cautious, more dangerous, 

 and more addicted to thick country. That after all this hunting he still survives in 

 most parts of Africa, and in some parts in great numbers, testifies amply to the 

 difficulties attending the hunting of him and the way he is able to take care of 

 himself. If only some cheap and perfect substitute could be offered by the chemical 

 world to take the place of ivory, there would be practically no danger whatever of this 

 animal ever becoming extinct or even of ever dwindling in numbers. 



The modern tendency is to cry out against all killing of big-game, whether 

 performed in a sporting or an unsporting manner. If adverse criticism were confined 

 to those who grossly infringe sporting codes all good sportsmen would acknowledge 

 the justice of the criticism. The ethics of sport as to whether it is wrong or not to 

 take animal life does not affect the question under consideration, for if it is wrong to 

 kill a kudu or sable it must be equally wrong to kill a red deer. What the 

 sentimentalist fails to realise is that sport properly controlled affords animal life greater 

 security than does criticism or even ill-controlled legislation. It is sport alone which 

 has saved the red deer from becoming extinct on Exmoor, and the same factor keeps 

 this animal in undiminished numbers in Scotland and in many of the European forests. 



As civilisation advances into the heart of Africa the big-game will become 

 reduced in numbers from a variety of reasons. Sentimental considerations alone are 

 not likely to produce the requisite funds for their preservation, a matter which will 

 become more expensive and more difficult as civilisation envelops their haunts and 

 the land they occupy becomes more valuable. Things may alter very greatly before 

 such a state is reached, but it appears at present as if the sportsman is the only man 

 who will be found to subscribe towards the maintenance of what will eventually be 

 looked on as a number of useless mouths grazing over land which might otherwise be 

 sold or disposed of. 



I cannot imagine any legislation likely to be popular by which settlers and 

 colonists could be forced to keep on their lands numbers of animals which would eat 

 their crops and break down their fences. Nor can I imagine such settlers submitting 



