September 19, 191 2 j 



NATURE 



n 



Ke gave a map showing the present and compa.a- 

 tively recent distribution for each of the species of 

 Marsupials and Monotremes indigenous to that 

 locality. West Australia as yet has been very much 

 less affected by civilisation than Queensland, New 

 South Wales, or Victoria, and yet in practically every 

 case there was found evidence of an enormous recent 

 restriction of the range of the species. Marsupials 

 and Monotremes are, as you know, rather stupid 

 animals, with small powers of adaptation to new 

 conditions, and they are in the very gravest danger of 

 complete extinction. In the island of Tasmania, the 

 thylacine, or marsupial wolf, and the Tasmanian devil 

 have unfortunately incurred the just hostility of the 

 stock raiser and poultry farmer, and the date of their 

 final extermination is approaching at a pace that 

 must be reckoned by months rather than by years. 



The development of the continent of North America 

 has been one of the wonders of the history of the 

 world, and we on this side of the Atlantic almost 

 hold our breath as we try to realise the material 

 wealth and splendour and the ardent intellectual and 

 social progress that have turned the United States 

 into an imperial nation. But we know what has 

 happened to the American bison. We know the 

 danger that threatens the pronghorn, one of 

 the most isolated and interesting of living creatures, 

 the Virginian deer, the mule-deer, and the bighorn 

 sheep. Even in the wide recesses of Canada, the 

 bighorn, the caribou, the elk, the wapiti, the white 

 mountain goat, and the bears are being rapidly driven 

 back by advancing civilisation. In South America less 

 immediate danger seems to threaten the jaguar and 

 maned wolf, the tapirs and ant-eaters and sloths, but 

 the energy of the rejuvenated Latin races points to a 

 huge encroachment of civilisation on wild nature al 

 no distant date. 



You will understand that I am giving examples and 

 not a catalogue even of threatened terrestrial mammals. 

 I have said nothing of the aquatic carnivores, nothing 

 of birds, or of reptiles, or of batrachians and fishes. 

 And to us who are zoologists, the vast destruction of 

 invertebrate life, the sweeping out, as forests are 

 cleared and the soil tilled, of innumerable species that 

 are not even named or described is a real calamitv. 

 I do not wish to appeal to sentiment. Man is worth 

 many sparrows ; he is worth all the animal population 

 of the globe, and if there were not room for both, 

 the animals must go. I will pass no judgment on 

 those who find the keenest pleasure of life in gratifying 

 the primeval instinct of sport. I will admit that there 

 is no better destiny for the lovely plumes of a rare 

 bird than to enhance the beauty of a beautiful woman. 

 I will accept the plea of those who prefer a well- 

 established trinomial to a moribund species. But I do 

 not admit the right of the present generation to care- 

 less indifference or to w'anton destruction. Each 

 generation is the guardian of the existing resources of 

 the world ; it has come into a great inheritance, but 

 only as a trustee. We are learning to preserve the 

 relics of early civilisations, and the rude remains of 

 man's primitive arts and crafts. Every civilised nation 

 spends great sums on painting and sculpture, on 

 libraries and museums. Living animals are of older 

 lineage, more perfect craftsmanship and greater beauty 

 than anv of the creations of man. And although we 

 value the work of our forefathers, we do not doubt 

 but that the generations yet unborn will produce their 

 own artists and writers, who may equal or surpass 

 the artists and writers of the past. But there is no 

 resurrection or recovery of an extinct species, and it 

 is not merely that here and there one species out of 

 many is threatened, but that whole genera, families, 

 and orders are in danger. 



NO. 2238, VOL. 90] . 



Now let me turn to what is being done and what 

 has been done for the preservation of fauna. I must 

 begin by saying, and this was one of the principal 

 reasons for selecting the subject of my address, that 

 we who are professional zoologists, systematists, 

 anatomists, embryologists, and students of general 

 biological problems, in this country at least, have not 

 taken a sufficiently active part in the preservation of 

 the realm of nature that provides the reason for our 

 existence. The first and most practical step of world- 

 wide importance was taken by a former president of 

 the British Association, the late Lord Salisbury, one 

 of the few in the long roll of English statesmen whose 

 mind was attuned to science. In 1S99 he arranged for 

 a convention of the Great Powers interested in Africa 

 to consider the preservation of what were curiously 

 described as the "Wild Animals, Birds and Fish" of 

 that continent. The convention, which did most im- 

 portant pioneer work, included amongst its members 

 another president of this Association, Sir Rav Lan- 

 kester, whom we hold in high honour in this section 

 as the living zoologist who has taken the widest 

 interest in every branch of zoology. But it was con- 

 fined in its scope to creatures of economic or of sport- 

 ing value. And from that time on the central 

 authorities of the Great Powers and the local adminis- 

 trators, particularly in the case of tropical possessions, 

 seem to have been influenced in the framing of their 

 rules and regulations chiefly by the idea of preserving 

 valuable game animals. Defining the number of each 

 kind of game that can be killed, charging compara- 

 tively high sums for shooting-permits, and the estab- 

 lishment of temporary or permanent reserved tracts 

 in which the game may recuperate, have been the 

 principal methods selected. On these lines, narrow 

 although they are, much valuable work has been 

 done, and the parts of the world where unrestricted 

 shooting is still possible are rapidlv being limited. 

 I may take the proposed new Game Act of our Indian 

 Empire, which has recently been explained, and to a 

 certain extent criticised, in the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society of London, by Mr. E. P. Stebbing, 

 an enlightened sportsman-naturalist, as an example of 

 the efforts that are being made in this direction, and 

 of their limitations. 



The Act is to apply to all India, but much initiative 

 is left to local governments as to the definition of the 

 important words "game" and "large animal." The 

 .^ct, however, declares what the words are to mean 

 in the absence of such local definitions, and it is a 

 fair assumption that local interpretatitns will not 

 depart widely from the lead given by the central 

 authority. Game is to include the following in their 

 wild state : — Pigeons, sandgrouse, peafowl, jungle- 

 fowl, pheasants, partridges, quail, spurfowl, florican 

 and their congeners ; geese, ducks and their con- 

 geners ; w-oodcock and snipe. .So much for birds. 

 Mammals include hares and " large animals " defined 

 as "all kinds of rhinoceros, buffalo, bison, oxen; all 

 kinds of sheep, goats, antelopes and their congeners ; 

 all kinds of gazelle and deer." 



The Act does not affect the pursuit, capture, or 

 killing of game by non-commissioned officers or 

 soldiers on whose behalf regulations have been made, 

 or of any animal for which a reward mav be claimed 

 from Government, of any large animal in self-defence, 

 or of any large animal by a cultivator or his servants, 

 whose crops it is injuring. Nor does it affect anv- 

 thing done under licence for possessing arms and 

 ammunition to protect crops, or for destroving danger- 

 ous animals, under the Indian Arms Act. Then 

 follow prohibitory provisions, all of which refer to the 

 killing or to the sale or possession of game or fish, 

 and provisions as to licences for sportsmen, the sums 



