200 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE 
At this time, with the large mammals of North America 
trembling on the brink of annihilation, no chapters in this 
work can surpass in importance those which attempt to set 
forth understandingly the prospects of our so-called “‘big- 
game” animals. It is necessary that every person who is 
interested in our mammalian fauna should know exactly 
where we stand to-day and what the outlook is for the near 
future. 
The subject of this chapter opens up a vast field of facts 
and conclusions, quite broad enough to fill a whole volume. 
In the space at our disposal here it is possible to offer only a 
summary of the subject, without attempting to prove our 
‘statements by the production of detailed evidence. 
To say that all over the world the large land mammals 
are being destroyed more rapidly than they are breeding, 
would not be literally true, for the reason that there are yet 
many areas that are almost untouched by the destroying 
hand of civilized man. It is true, however, that all the un- 
spoiled areas are rapidly growing fewer and smaller. It is 
also true that in all the regions of the earth that are easily 
penetrable by civilized man, the wild life is being killed faster 
than it breeds, and of necessity it is disappearing. This is 
why the British are now so urgently bestirring themselves to 
create game preserves in all the countries of their domain. 
It is one of the inexorable laws of Nature, to which I know 
of not one exception, that large hoofed animals which live on 
open plains, on open mountains or in regions that are thinly 
forested, are always easily found and easily exterminated. 
All such animals have a weak hold on life. This is because it 
