WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



But, although the woods and fields are fairly well 

 patrolled by the official guardians, the laws are often 

 evaded by poachers and by licensed hunters. 



How can one hope to protect the animals in Africa 

 against European hunters, who, for the most part, know 

 little of hunting and less of the nature of the hunted 

 animals, and are, as a rule, anything but true sports- 

 men? If the colonial governments of Africa really 

 wish to prevent the total destruction of the African 

 fauna, then they must not be satisfied with merely 

 issuing prohibitory laws which cannot be enforced in 

 their vast territory, but they must follow in the foot- 

 steps of the English, who have approached the solution 

 of the problem with their usual practical common-sense. 

 The British government has undertaken to protect 

 many specimens of the African fauna by establishing 

 preserves in the neighborhood of the railroad lines un- 

 der the supervision of its officials. This system has 

 worked very well, and is also to be recommended to the 

 German East African government. 



For a long time the sportsman-hunter was proclaimed 

 by books and newspapers to be the great malefactor, 

 the destroyer of the rich African fauna. The sports- 

 man, in the only true sense of the word, is responsible 

 for an infinitely small percentage of the havoc wrought 

 on the African animal world. The real culprits are: the 

 traders, whose caravans feed on game; the would-be 

 settlers, who, on principle, kill everything in sight; the 



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