OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 235 
vey only in short periods, say of three or four years each. 
Naturally, the skin-hunters of Alaska ardently desire the 
skins of those bears, for the money they represent. That 
side of the bear problem does not in the least appeal to the 
ninety-odd millions of people who live this side of Alaska. 
The skins of the Alaskan brown bears have little value save 
as curiosities, nailed upon the wall, where they cannot be 
stepped upon and injured. The hunting of those bears, how- 
ever, is a business for men; and it is partly for that reason 
they should be preserved. A bear-hunt on the Alaska Penin- 
sula, Admiralty or Montagu Islands, is an event of a lifetime, 
and with a bag limit of one brown bear the species would be 
quite safe from extermination. 
Tue Buack Bnuar is an interesting citizen. As a rule, he 
harms nobody nor anything; he affords good sport; he ob- 
jects to being exterminated, and wherever in North America 
he is threatened with extermination he should at once re- 
ceive protection! A black bear in the wilds is harmless. In 
captivity, posed as a household “‘pet,”’ he is decidedly dan- 
gerous and had best be given the middle of the road. In 
big forests he is a persistent resident, and will not be exter- 
minated from the fauna of the United States during the next 
quarter-century. 
Conciusion.—The logical conclusion to be drawn from the 
persistent destruction of the big game of North America 
is that Congress should immediately make every national 
forest a national game preserve, in which, for the present at 
least, no hunting should be allowed save the hunting of 
highly destructive predatory animals. 
