DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 109 



together at the Palaeolithic settlement at Predmost in 

 Moravia, and the broken bones of Horses, left over from 

 many a feast, form a solid mass 100 yards in length and 

 ten feet high at the Palaeolithic station of Solutre, in the 

 Rhone Valley. Nevertheless primitive weapons almost 

 limited the destruction to the absolute necessities of the 

 sparse population. 



The essence of the question of uneconomic slaughter is 

 a simple one of capital and interest, where the breeding 

 stock of any race of animals may be regarded as the capital 

 and the year's young as the annual interest. So long as 

 destruction is kept within the limits of the yearly interest 

 and depreciation of capital is made up, all is well with the 

 race, but so soon as the full interest is usurped and the 

 capital stock begins to be entrenched upon, then the race is 

 on the downgrade of reduced numbers, and, provided the 

 destruction is kept up, of final extinction. 



Several causes led to growing intensity in the slaughter 

 of wild animals. The first in time was probably the domes- 

 tication of wild creatures, and the consequent necessity for 

 their protection. So the casual slaughter of prowling- 

 marauders developed into enmity and a blood feud against 

 the larger beasts and birds of prey, an enmity which 

 increased as feudal rule decayed and the people gained 

 a new will and new powers to protect the crops and herds 

 which their labours had created. In the second place, 

 increased perfection of weapons and the invention of powder 

 and the gun placed in man's hands new powers which he 

 was not slow to use to the utmost. Many creatures have 

 been banished from different areas of Britain since "weapons 

 of precision " made their appearance, and nothing could 

 witness more clearly to their influence than the fact that 

 after the general disarming of the peasants of Poland by 

 the Russian Government there was an enormous increase 

 in the number of Wolves. In our own country similar 

 effects have followed upon the absence of guns during the 

 Great War, for never in the memory of man have the 

 creatures of the wild, Deer and Rabbits, birds of prey, Stoats, 

 Weasels and other "vermin," been so abundant as they are 

 to-day. 



The third and most fatal stage in the development of 



