54 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[July i, i8qi. 
let it pass. The public feela an interast, however, 
in fish, and that product also is threatened. Year 
by year the trawlers seek new ground, and still 
the price rises. They have cleared our coaets so 
far that fishermen themselves, the least nervous 
of mortals, and not the most intelligent, demand 
protection, to save their industry from oollapsr. 
It is not worth while to speak cf oysters. All 
the world knows that our famous " natives " have 
vanished, and miscellaneous foreign species occupy 
their beds. For the daily supply of lobsters we 
depend on Scandinavia eked out by America ; how 
long these will last is a matter for calculation. 
Such inland waters as are open to the public 
have been cleared of big fish long ago, and the 
continual replenishments scarcely keep puce with 
the multiplication of anglers. So desperate we grow 
that perilous designs of acclimatiz'xtion are wel- 
comed. The black bass of America, the silurus 
of Southern Europe, will be turned down shortly 
in our narrow streams and tiny lakes, where 
assuredly, if they themselves give sport they 
will kill off all the natives. A pastime which 
some of us remember with especial delight 
"tickling,"' or ''grappling," is forbidden by law 
with reason enough under the circumstances. 
Like its rival in the memory of veterans, birds'- 
nesting, it had to be suppresed for the " preserva- 
tion of the species.'' Country lads find more 
blameless sports now, perhaps. So we must hope, 
But the pursuit of Lepidoptera is not for all, and 
there are still myriads of boys who can rarely 
enjoy a game at cricket in the holidays. They 
suffer by the clearing out of wild creatures which 
have amused every generation of English youth. 
And the farmers suffer also. Eagles, kites, buz- 
zards, and bustards have gone. Owls and hawks 
are following. While we write, Parliament is debat- 
ing whether or no it is worth while to arrest 
the extermination of bares. 
The romance of the ariverso -will bo eclipsed 
when wild beasts disappear ; and the time draws on. 
Professor Langley, whom we have quoted, makes a 
strong appeal for the preservation of such as still 
survive in North America. May it be successful ; 
but we fear. Close seasons may be appointed, and 
hunting parties may be forbidden. But the area of 
cultivation will spread, and settlers will still be 
armed with weapons more and more and more 
deadly. The same process is going on everywhere. 
Startling it is to learn, for those who knew South 
Africa but twenty years ago, how far a man must 
travel beyond the Orange Eiver to find even spring- 
bok—an antelope which ho remembers covering the 
veldt in thousand as he drove northwards from the 
Karoo. The zebra alone appears to be actually 
lost ; but all other species which were prized in Cape 
Colony are represented by a few specimens here and 
there. Government is roused, and some landowners 
preserve strictly. But as men multiply they will 
have land, and they cannot be prevented from shoot- 
im game to eat. Already there is an agitation to do 
away with the Reserve at Uitenage, where the last 
survivors of the elephant is South Africa find a 
narrow home. It may succeed presently; but before 
those pachyderm vanish they may also have outlived 
their kinflred beyond the frontier. As peace is es- 
tablished in Central Africa population will grow, 
and in defence of their crops the natives must wage 
war upon the most destructive of all animals— putt- 
ing ivory and ' sport " aside. The hippopotamus 
the rhinoceros, which do not seek the shelter 
of dfinse forpsts, will even predecease the elephant. 
Buffalo will last longer, no doubt ; but the antelopes, 
all of which haunt pasture-land, and are all food, 
will not hold their own so long. And the great 
folines muat go with tbem, 
It is the same in Asia. Elephants have been pre- 
served for a good many years now in the Indian 
and Cingalese jungles, where they still exist. But 
tbes? jungloB narrow continually. The Census re- 
turns published a few days ago show an increase of 
twenty-two million souls, the vast majority of whom 
belong to the agricultural class. They encroach on 
the forests and the waste lands year by year. 
It is cultivation, not slaughter, which thins wild 
beasts. There is apathetic joassage in Sir Samuel 
Barker's recent work. He tells of a visit paid — 
in 1878, if we remember rightly — to the hunting 
grounds of his youth in Ceylon. Not a head of 
game could he find in districts which teemed with 
deer and buffalo thirty years before. Thirty 
years hence, so far as we can see, big game will 
be extinct in Oeylon. 
It is all for the best, no doubt. Wild beasts have 
beaome a sort of anachronism all over a woild full 
of beasts that are not ostensibly wild. But some- 
thing of interest will vanish from human life when 
they are lost. Increase and multiply and replenish 
the earth is a divine command, but in fulfi'ling 
our destiny faster and faster, we seem to be exter- 
minating the beautiful. Nor is it by any means 
assured that Nature will not exact compensation. 
But a month ago one would have declared with 
absolute confidence that the extinction of alligators 
would be a blessing unmixed. Not a redeeming 
virtue of any kind do those brutes possess, we 
thought, and all who know them had been rejoi- 
cing to bear that the demand for alligator leather 
threatened their existence. But now we learn that 
the waning of their numbers is spreading panic in 
Flori<la. The musk rat increases so fast that 
riverside plantations have been ruined. And the 
danger grows more serious month by month. An 
act has been hurried through the Legislature, im- 
posing a fine of one hundred dollars on the man 
who wilfully kills an alligator, under any circum- 
stances, during the next three years. No stronger 
instance could be found of the peril that attends 
human interference with the system of Nature. — 
Saturday Review, 
♦ 
ELEPHANT-CATCHING OPERATIONS IN 
MADRAS. 
The success that has attended its elephant- 
catching operations has induced the Madras Forest 
Department to extend them. The operations were 
inaugurated in North Malabar in 1884, since when 
the capture of elephants has been confined to 
North and South Malabar and South Coimbatore. 
Thirty-one elephants have been captured, of which 
17 are now working ; one escaped ; one was sold, 
and the remainder died. Of the last the death 
of four are attributed to the gross ill-treatment 
and neglect of the Forest subordinates, who have 
been brought to task and dismissed the service, 
16 of the elephants were caught in North Malabar. 
12 in South Malabar, and 3 in South Coimbatore. 
More elephants would have been taken in South 
Coimbator, where operations only began last year, 
but for the exceptional dryness of the season, 
owing to the failure of the South-West and North - 
East monsoons. The operations have been carried 
out under the supervision of the Forest Officers, 
Messrs. Morgan, Hadfield and Porter, and great 
credit is due to them. The ]pit system is the 
one employed for the capture of elephants, for 
it is considered by these officers superior to the 
khedda system, there being little or no risk of 
injury if sufficient precautions are taken and 
reliable men are told off for the work. The 
estimated cost of the capture of an elephant ia 
