THE WILD FAUNA OF THE EMPIRE 27 



compensated for by the natural reproduction and increase of the 

 wild game. 



Possibly all this is freely admitted by those who have thought 

 on the matter at all. But it is as well to clear the ground and to 

 know who are the real sinners, before touching on possible 

 remedies. In case the term ' British sportsmen ' should be too 

 wide, I hasten to state two possible exceptions. Amateur ivory- 

 hunters and certain sportsmen-naturalists in search of specimens 

 are not altogether — in every case — clear of guilt. The former 

 have, in some instances, been tempted to kill more than a fair 

 proportion of elephants in Central Africa for the value of the ivory ; 

 and in reference to sportsmen-naturalists I have in my mind the 

 recorded slaughter of the author of ' With Flashlight and Eifle, ' 

 who, in the desire for zoological specimens, committed greater 

 depredations on African big game than the reasonable humane 

 sportsman can approve of. But the hero in this case was not, as 

 a matter of fact, British. The real depredators, however, in all 

 wild countries have been natives and settlers. It is a curious 

 fact that the men who, one would think, are, or should be, 

 mainly interested in game preservation, the men who are in- 

 digenous to a country or have gone there to settle, and to whom 

 the maintenance of its natural wealth of wild animal life for sport, 

 for food, for revenue and gain is all-important — these are the 

 very men who have invariably been most apt to diminish or 

 destroy it. I have almost laboured to try and make this point 

 clear, so that we may advocate remedies on right lines. A correct 

 diagnosis of the disease precedes its cure. 



I have known Western America for the past thirty years. 

 First, in the days when big game of all kinds were plentiful, when 

 no measures for their protection were even thought of, and when 

 everyone killed according to his own sweet will. Then, again, I 

 have known it since the buffalo have been wiped out, and since 

 antelope, deer, and wapiti have been either exterminated in large 

 stretches of country or driven therefrom into the wildest and 

 most inaccessible portions of the Eockies. Protective legislation 

 there is now in plenty in the Western States ; but it came too late 

 for the buffalo, and hardly in time — let us say only just in time — 

 for the deer and the wapiti. The men who wiped out the buffalo 

 and killed deer, antelope, and wapiti in thousands were partly the 

 native Red Indians when they obtained cheap rifles, but mainly 

 the white settlers, and, above all, the professional white hide- 

 hunters. It is difficult to blame the men themselves, for some 

 made a living out of it. But it is permissible to wonder at the 

 shortsightedness of the State authorities and of the United States 

 Government, who permitted the slaughter to go so far. 



The moral for us of the Empire is plain. Where opportunity 

 presents itself, we who know something of what may be going on 

 in outlying regions wish to lose no chance of advocating, in season 



