80 THE SOCIETY FOE THE PRESERVATION OE 



GAME LAWS AND REGULATIONS. 



By P. GlLLETT. 



In the making of Game Laws there are three different classes 

 that have to he considered ; the natives, the settlers, and European 

 sportsmen. 



The natives may from time immemorial have depended almost 

 entirely on the game of the country for food and clothing, but 

 owing to their primitive weapons, their methods of capture, and 

 the fact that large areas of country were left unmolested as the 

 various tribes confined themselves to certain districts for the sake 

 of safety, instead of being scattered over the whole country in 

 single families, the game was able to withstand the annual toll 

 taken from them. 



Besides this, the natives did not in all cases depend on the 

 game; for instance, in Somaliland, except for the outcast Midgan 

 tribe, who are hunters and mercenary soldiers by profession, the 

 tribes are as a rule nomads, wandering about within certain areas 

 with their flocks and herds, and living principally on the produce 

 of those flocks. Of course they killed a certain amount of game 

 but they did not hunt systematically for a livelihood, rice, milk, 

 and dates being their staple food. 



Again, in British Columbia, whereas the Chilcotin Indians 

 spend most of their lives hunting, the Indians living along the 

 Eraser river and its tributaries subsist almost entirely on the 

 salmon which they catch in the fall of the year. 



Now, in considering this class in the framing of game laws it 

 is necessary to ascertain the conditions, past and present, of the 

 various tribes, because whereas it would be no hardship in a 

 general way to make very stringent laws in Somaliland, it would 

 in other districts be unfair, and I might even go so far as to say 

 criminal, to prevent a tribe or tribes from obtaining their living in 

 the way they have been accustomed to for generations past. 



In Canada, as a rule, the Indians are permitted to kill any game 

 on their Reservations at any season of the year; in a general way 

 the game on their Reservations has long since been killed off. 

 Outside their Reservations they are subject to the same laws as the 

 rest of mankind, but these laws they sometimes break with the 

 greatest ease : for example, it is the custom of the Indians — at 

 least) it was a few years ago, on a Reservation near Grand View, 

 Manitoba — to hunt all the year round outside their Reserve, and 

 to bring whatever they killed into the Reserve, and, if questions 

 were asked, to say they killed it there. The result was that within 

 a two days' journey of their Reserve they had practically exter- 

 minated the wapiti hinds. A half-breed Indian I had with me 

 told me of this, adding that there were still some stags left and 



