ANIMAL SANCTUARIES 119 



offender being liable to be sentenced to death. 

 Although the inhabitants of some countries still 

 retain a certain degree of religious veneration 

 towards living creatures, yet, as a general rule, 

 the denizens of the wild are looked upon as mere 

 chattels of mankind which he considers he is 

 justified in treating as he thinks fit, and, conse- 

 quently, they have been persecuted to such an 

 extent that, in many instances, they have been 

 almost, and even entirely, wiped off the face of the 

 earth. The fate of the American bison, for instance, 

 is an object lesson for all, and shows to what an 

 extent human beings will go should their inclina- 

 tions remain unchecked, for whereas during the 

 life of the present generation those noble creatures 

 were to be found by the million indeed, were so 

 plentiful that the Cree Indians were under the 

 impression that they came out of a great cavern in 

 the earth in a never-ending stream yet to-day 

 they have almost been exterminated by the greed 

 of hunters, although, happily, those few individuals 

 which still dwell upon earth now receive the protec- 

 tion of laws passed on their behalf. ' The killing 

 of an American bison for a tongue to sell for fifty 

 cents ; the killing of a fine bull elk for a pair of 

 misshapen and ugly teeth worth a dollar ; the killing 

 of a walrus for fun from the deck of a swiftly -moving 

 steamer ; the killing of a brown pelican merely 

 to see it fall, all are crimes, and should be classed 

 in the annals of crime as murder. The murder 

 of a wild- animal species consists in taking from it 

 that which man, with all his cunning, can never 



