RESERVES 3 



operations ; added to this, from October to 

 May the climatic conditions are well-nigh in- 

 supportable, and it thus follows that the breeding 

 season of many of the varieties found falls within 

 the period last mentioned. But, as I have so 

 repeatedly stated and written, what is required 

 is a more extended system of inviolable game 

 reserves, a more coherent method of enforcing 

 regulations enacted, and more efficient machinery 

 for bringing offenders against existing game laws 

 before the authorities empowered to punish 

 misdeeds. In Nyasaland, 1 believe, the regula- 

 tions in force are given effect to by a sufficient 

 personnel both European and native, so that 

 transgression is almost certain now to result in 

 the infliction of the penalty prescribed ; but if 

 one might be permitted to criticise the measures 

 adopted within the Portuguese Sphere of In- 

 fluence, one would be forced to say that, although 

 the law in itself is well imagined — well drawn 

 up, its enforcement at the hands of wardens, 

 rangers, verderers, or whatever we may please 

 to call them, is not sufficiently stringent. My 

 view of the case is that from the date of the 

 creation of a reserve tor the preservation of 

 game, no person whomsoever should under any 

 pretext be permitted to discharge a firearm 

 within its limits except for the purpose of ex- 

 terminating therein such predatory forms as 

 may constitute a danger to the game beasts it 

 contains. I think if the importance of this rule 

 were more widely understood and appreciated, 

 many persons who now permit themselves to 



