218 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



answers : ' Why not, indeed ?' As well ask why 

 Scotch deer-forests command fancy rentals and con- 

 tribute so largely to the rates ; why big-game hunters 

 and deer- stalkers are drawn from all sorts and condi- 

 tions of men, and are thoroughly representative of 

 the genus homo; why the world- wide instinct of 

 civilized as well as primitive man is to hunt and 

 kill wild-game ; why, in fact, generic man is an 

 omnivorous, carnivorous, predatory animal ; and why 

 prime beefsteak in London is now in this civilized 

 age still two shillings or more per pound. 



But the big-game hunters, for whom I now claim 

 to say a word, have, in fact, done practically nothing 

 to reduce the stock of Rocky Mountain big-game. 

 They have only killed in sweet reasonableness, for 

 sport and healthful excitement and exercise, the old 

 bulls and such-like ; and all their combined killing 

 multiplied fivefold would have had no effect on the 

 natural increase of the stock, unless, perhaps, in the 

 case of such game as wolf, bear, and mountain-lion, 

 where no distinctions of age and sex are drawn. 



Hide-hunters, settlers, and Indians, who have killed 

 in the past regardless of season, numbers, age or sex, 

 are the real authors of that sad diminution of the wild 

 animal life of the Rockies that has taken place 

 during the past thirty years. Wapiti have only been 

 saved from total extinction by their own natural 

 activity and instincts ; by the establishment of game- 

 wardens ; by a license to kill that must be paid for ; by 

 a restriction on the numbers allowed to be killed per 

 hunter ; and last, but not least, by the strictly enforced 

 game sanctity of the Yellowstone National Park. 



To return, then, to our reasonable killing. One or 

 two more episodes will suffice. 



