APrENDIX. 345 



with tlmt modomtion wliich should ulwaya chnrnctcrlso n civilised 

 I)e(>j)lt', to iidbrd both tlie invi<?oratin;j; ploasuroH of sport and luxuries 

 for the nuvrket. Every Ktreiim and lake abounds with trout, and 

 there arc but few rivers from Cape Sable to the Labrador which the 

 salmon does not annually attempt to ascend. 



What, then, is to be desired ? Has not America, receiving from 

 the east all those useful aninuxls which accompany num in his mij^ra- 

 tions, and whicli, returning to a state of nature in the i)lains of 

 ]\Ie.\ico and South America, have multiplied so greatly as to allbrd a 

 Btai)le product for exportation, giving all imaginable luxuries to the 

 new-coming nations in the produce of her forests, prairies, rivers, and 

 sea coasts ? Yes, but the gift has been abused. It is sad to con- 

 template the wanton destruction of game and game hsh throughout 

 the northern continent since its first settlement by Europeans : numy 

 animals, now on the verge of extinction, driven olf their still large 

 domains, not primarily by the ai)proach of civilisation, but by ruth- 

 less, wholesale, and wanton modes of destruction. " One invariable 

 jjcculiarity of the American pcoi)lc," says the author of "The (lame 

 Eish of the North," " is that they attack, overturn, and anuihihitc, 

 and then laboriously reconstruct. Our first I'armers clujpjtcd down 

 the forests and shade trees, took crop after crop of the same kind 

 from the land, exhausted the soil, and made bare the country ; they 

 lunitcd and fished, destroying first the wild animals, then the birds, 

 and finally the fish, till in many places these ceased utterly from the 

 face of the earth ; and then, when they had finished their work, that 

 race of gentlemen moved west to renew the same course of destruc- 

 tion. After them came the restorers ; they manured the land, left it 

 fallow, put in practice the rotation of crops, planted shade and fruit 

 trees, discovered that birds were useful in destroying insects and 

 ■worms, passed laws to protect them where they were not uttei'ly 

 extinct, as with the pinnated grouse of Pennsylvania and Long 

 Island, and will, I predict, ere long re-stock the streams, rivers, and 

 ptmds, with the best of the fish that once inhabited them." 



A home question for our subject would be, — In the hands of which 

 class of men does this colony now find itself? And I fear the un- 

 hesitating answer of the impartial stranger and visitor would be, 

 that in all regarding the preservation of our living natural resources, 

 we were in the hands of the destroyers. The course of destruc- 

 tion so ably depicted by the author quoted, is being prosecuted 

 throughout the length and breadth of Nova Scotia, and the settlers 

 of this province, blind to their own interests, careless of their children's, 



