ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 61 
Excellent game laws prevail, but the great num- 
ber of hunters has made wild life as scarce in 
French North Africa as in the western states 
at home. 
Of the larger mammals the lion is gone, and 
even as a tradition is barely remembered. I 
visited the grave of Jules Gerard at Bouira, 
who to my surprise I found survived down to 
our time, dying in 1911, in his 89th year! The 
panther is extinct in all except two localities. 
Judging from the number of women wearing 
jackal furs, a terrible slaughter has been meted 
out to these animals. The hyena is very rare. 
~The mouflon is gone from all sections of Al- 
geria but one, and is scarce in Morocco. Form- 
erly at Biskra horns of the mouflon, addax, ga- 
zelle, ete., were on sale everywhere. This time 
I found only one very old pair of mouflon horns, 
a few very inferior gazelle horns, no addax, and 
no panther skins. From forty to fifty English 
sportsmen hunting each year for forty years (all 
observing the game laws), have wiped out the 
mouflon at El Kantara. At Bougie, where 
panther claws were sold as charms at five franes 
apiece, none are now to be had at any price, 
“none being killed” the reason. 
In the Sahara, Mahomet Szhir, a character 
famous at Biskra, says: “The game is all gone. 
Occasionally, one sees an old skin, that is all. 
No ostriches have been seen for several years.” 
The bubal hartebeest (Bubalis boselaphus), is 
gone, even as a memory. The Barbary par- 
tridge is almost gone. On our trip we actually 
saw three; and one squirrel, two foxes, two 
jackals and a tame young wild boar. 
Game laws are mere “‘scraps of paper” in the 
face of an army of well-armed and indefatigable 
hunters! Unless hunters can content them- 
selves with small kills, there will be no game in 
the future, anywhere! 
When I was here in 1913, the leopard was 
considered in no danger of extinction. Now it 
is practically gone. The gazelle is far from 
plentiful. This winter English and American 
sportsmen have made big bags, and they will 
have it all gone by 1925. The wild boar will 
last the longest, as it haunts the deep forest 
covers. The decrease in bird life is most notice- 
able. Many birds which we class as insectivor- 
ous, and try to protect, are subject to open 
seasons here. Apart from the loss to sport and 
agriculture by the destruction of these interest- 
ing forms -of wild life, it is a sad fact that 
much of the picturesque charm of these coun- 
tries is gone from them by their passing.” 
Before leaving Algiers, Edouard Arnaud, the 
best known guide of American and English 
hunting parties for mouflon and gazelle, said: 
> = 
“In the Sahara desert about Biskra and Tug- 
gurt the gazelle will last probably three more 
seasons. It is very scarce now, and thirty to 
fifty parties of English and Americans go out 
after it each winter, to say nothing of local and 
native hunters all of whom make big kills. The 
mouflon has been completely exterminated in the 
mountains about El Kantara. The gazelles have 
been all killed off since the war in the Little 
Sahara at Bou-Saida. In Morocco, since the 
French occupation, the gazelles are disappear- 
ing fast in the plains about Marrakesh. I know 
of only one place in Algeria where the mouflon 
and gazelle can be found in favorable numbers, 
and that is because it is too difficult for tourists 
to get in to them.” 
In the Cevennes Mountains wolves are still to 
be found, and wild boars are so numerous that 
one hunter near Anduze killed five in one month. 
Since the wolves have been destroyed over the 
greater part of France the boars have increased 
enormously, and now they can be killed at any 
time, and in any way. In some sections there is 
a bounty of fifty francs for mature boars, and 
smaller premiums for younger ones. 
In Italy we found bird life at a low ebb, and 
an awful slaughter going on at all times. I 
spent some time with a taxidermist in Turin, 
watching boys and men coming in with beautiful 
insectivorous birds, in their nesting season, to be 
mounted. The taxidermist said: 
“Apart from birds, wild life still exists in the 
Italian Alps. The ibex is still protected as 
royal game, and though the heads are deterio- 
rating owing to the easy life which these animals 
lead since their natural enemies the wolves and 
lammergeiers have been killed, they still exist 
in fair numbers. The- chamois still is to be 
found, also a few deer; and wolves and bears 
are sometimes met with; also the wild cat. Game 
birds have been shot and trapped steadily, as 
have all other birds, and there seems to be no 
way to create a public sentiment to save thein. 
In Sardinia the mouflon is fast disappearing, 
owing to the demands for its horns.” 
In France bird life is much in need of assis- 
tance, due to years of non-protection, though all 
French scientists are anxious to have something 
done.* The only bird we saw in an extensive 
tour of the country was the pie, or magpie, and 
now there is talk of putting a bounty of five 
franes on it to get it out of the way. We saw a 
hawk kill a magpie in the open road near Arles, 
so they have their natural enemies also. The 
French sporting papers are deploring the ab- 
sence of birds and game, and so are the leading 
