BRITISH ASSOCIATION: ZOOLOGICAL SECTION. 359 
preservation of the realm of nature that provides the reason for our 
existence. The first and most practical step of world-wide importance 
was taken by a former President of the British Association, the late 
Lord Salisbury, one of the few in the long roll of English statesmen 
whose mind was attuned to science. In 1899 he arranged for a 
convention of the Great Powers interested in Africa to consider the 
preservation of what were curiously described as the ‘‘ Wild Animals, 
Birds and Fish” of that continent. The convention, which did most 
important pioneer work, included amongst its members another 
President of this Association, Sir Ray Lankester, whom we hold in 
high honour in this Section as the living zoologist who has taken the 
widest interest in every branch of zoology. But it was confined in 
its scope to creatures of economic or of sporting value. And from 
that time on the central authorities of the Great Powers and the 
local Administrators, particularly in the case of tropical possessions, 
seem to have been influenced in the framing of their rules and 
regulations chiefly by the idea of preserving valuable game animals. 
Defining the number of each kind of game that can be killed, charging 
comparatively high sums for shooting-permits, and the establishment 
of temporary or permanent reserved tracts in which the game may 
recuperate, have been the principal methods selected. On these 
lines, narrow although they are, much valuable work has been done, 
and the parts of the world where unrestricted shooting is still possible 
are rapidly being limited. I may take the proposed new Game Act 
of our Indian Empire, which has recently been explained, and to a 
certain extent criticised, in the ‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society 
of London,’ by Mr. HE. P. Stebbing, an enlightened sportsman- 
naturalist, as an example of the efforts that are being made in this 
direction, and of their limitations. 
The Act is to apply to all India, but much initiative is left to Local 
Governments as to the definition of the important words “game” and 
“large animal.”’ The Act, however, declares what the words are to 
mean in the absence of such local definitions, and it is a fair assump- 
tion that local interpretations will not depart widely from the lead 
given by the central Authority. Game is to include the following in 
their wild state :—Pigeons, sandgrouse, peafowl, jungle-fowl, phea- 
sants, partridges, quail, spurfowl, florican and their congeners ; geese, 
ducks and their congeners; woodcock and snipe. So much for Birds. 
Mammals include hares and ‘large animals”’ defined as “ all kinds of 
rhinoceros, buffalo, bison, oxen; all kinds of sheep, goats, antelopes 
and their congeners ; all kinds of gazelle and deer.” 
The Act does not affect the pursuit, capture, or killing of game by 
non-commissioned officers or soldiers on whose behalf regulations 
have been made, or of any animal for which a reward may be claimed 
from Government, of any large animal in self-defence, or of any large 
animal by a cultivator or his servants, whose crops it is injuring. 
Nor does it affect anything done under licence for possessing arms 
and ammunition to protect crops, or for destroying dangerous 
animals, under the Indian Arms Act. Then follow prohibitory pro- 
visions, all of which refer to the killing or to the sale or possession of 
