In Wildest Africa -^ 



of protection for the African fauna throughout the wide 

 possessions or spheres of interest of the British Empire. 

 In England, too, many strong pleas have been made in 

 support of the view that even relatively speaking noxious 

 animals should not be deprived by man of the right to a 

 certain amount of protection. Thus Sir H. H. Johnston, 

 the former Governor of the Uganda Province in Central 

 Africa, says in his preface to the English edition of my 

 book With Flashlight and Rifle, that in his opinion the 

 weasel, the owl, and the primitive British badger of the 

 existing fauna ought not to be entirely sacrificed to 

 the pheasant — a beautiful enough bird, but, after all, one 

 that must always remain an "interloper"; that the egret, 

 the bird of paradise, the chinchilla, the sea-otter,^ and 

 such-like creatures are " aesthetically as important," and 

 have the same right to existence, as a woman beautifully 

 dressed in the spoils of these animals. Good pioneer 

 work in this direction must result from the noble-hearted 

 resolve of the Queen of England to put herself at the 

 head of the " Anti-Osprey Movement," organised to save 

 the royal heron from threatened extinction. 



There can be no doubt that the complete extermination 

 of any species of animal must excite in the mind of a 

 reflecting man a sense of injustice and wrong ; and that 

 this complete destruction of certain species can only be to 

 the interest of all men in general when such animals, of 

 whatever kind they may be, are entirely noxious and 



^ Strict regulations have lately been put into force for the preservation 

 of the last-named species. But, as the result of the merciless persecution 

 to which it has been subjected, the sea-otter is all but extinct. 



IIO 



