WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



The use of barbed-wire fences is destructive to many 

 a species of deer — pre-eminently so in America. The 

 Austrahan farmer is the arch-enemy of the kangaroo. 

 In Asia many species of animals will soon cease to 

 exist — the rhinoceros of India, the wild sheep, goats, 

 and horses of the central Asiatic plains. The steinbock 

 has disappeared from the Alpine heights; only a few 

 are still kept at Aosta, in the game preserves of the 

 king of Italy. In Germany, the aurochs, the bison of 

 the ancient Teutons, extinct long ago, plays a part only 

 in the legends of the "fatherland." We can but guess 

 what this fine animal may have been like, so fragmentary 

 is our knowledge. 



The elk, too, have almost died out; a small number 

 only survive. The same may be said of the beaver, 

 formerly common on the banks of the Elbe. 



But still more tragic is the gradual extinction of the 

 fauna in South Africa, at the hands of the colonizers 

 and civilizers of the "Dark Continent." Only a short 

 time ago innumerable herds of all kinds of wild animals 

 were to be encountered there. 



The Boers had to fight, as it were, with the animals 

 for every square mile of new territory. The natives, 

 however, did not suffer the fate of the North American 

 Indians. The advance of civilized man into their land 

 did not destroy them; it only curtailed their absolute 

 dominion over their own land, crowding them out alto- 

 gether or limiting them to the less-desirable portion of 



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