CHAPTER XXV 



PROTECTION OF BIG GAME 

 (specially in EELATION to BRITISH EAST AFRICA) 



A MAIN outstandiuoj dauoer to bio; game lies in its 

 abundance. Its very numbers deceive ; and especially 

 does that remark apply in Africa, where many of the 

 larger animals live conspicuous on the open plain. 



It is not matter for wonder that new-comers, or 

 settlers (men, it may be, who have never before in their 

 lives seen game, great or small), conclude that, amidst 

 abundance, they may slaughter without stint. 



But are the thouohtful amonor us never goinsr to learn 

 the obvious lesson — shall we always blind our eyes to 

 the staring examples of the past ? Whole faunas, as 

 rich as those that yet survive, and richer, have been 

 swept off the face of the earth during our generation and 

 under our eyes. Witness that abominable massacre of 

 the bison on Western- American prairies. That was 

 accomplished in a single decade — in the 'eighties. 

 AVituess, again, the destruction of the reindeer in Norway 

 in the 'nineties. That piece of barbarism occupied but 

 , five years — the five that succeeded the introduction of 

 cordite and cheap repeating-rifles. AVitness, thirdly, the 

 tale of ceaseless slaughter maintained during half-a- 

 century on South-African veld — whole genera and 

 families of beautiful creatures decimated or extirpated 

 root and branch by a merciless Boeotian race and scarce 

 a record left behind. 



After the mischief has been done the world laments 

 it. Herculean efforts are then made to preserve a few 

 wretched remnants. Crocodile- tears flow in scientific 



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