134 CRUISE OF THE BARRERA 



ure of killing. There is nothing more distressing 

 than the wanton wish to destroy life. This desire 

 amounts almost to an instinct and is a surviving 

 impulse from our carnivorous ancestors of the 

 cave-dwelling era. In thoughtless and heedless 

 manner and under the elastic term of "sport" we 

 have exterminated many harmless birds and ani- 

 mals, and now with the opening of Africa we are 

 destroying the last survivors of the big mammals. 

 If our civilized women who treat their pets and 

 domestic animals with lavish kindness could only 

 realize the cruelties of the plume hunter and the 

 fur trappers of the north, they would surely find 

 substitutes for the feathers in their hats and the 

 fur for their garments. Much has been written 

 of the egrets and other birds that now approach 

 extermination through the wholesale slaughter in- 

 spired by human vanity, and happily there has 

 been found enough humane feeling to check it. 

 Less, however, is known of the suffering of the 

 fur-bearing animals of the north, that perish mis- 

 erably in the steel traps, if they fail to gnaw off 

 the imprisoned foot that is lacerated in its steel 

 jaws. A feeling of comradeship with all living 

 creatures of the forests meets a response with 



