21 
failure; this year the news is even worse, and the starving 
Indians are “ ready to dispute to the death for the possession of a 
stray Bison.” 
I need not waste your time by comment upon so sad a story. 
Wliat wonder if wo hear of Indian troubles, when their food is 
killed and their hunting-grounds laid waste, even before the 
inexorable march of human progress can be adduced in mitigation. 
Truly the J{ed.skin and the American Bison, two races, whose fate 
is so inexorably mixed up, will soon cease to exist ; and the fine 
race of men, of whom Catlin speaks so highly, but whoso de- 
moralised descendants load one almost to doubt the traveller’s 
veracity, will ere long bo known only by name. I might add to 
this melancholy list almost indefinitely, but time and your 
patience forbid. 
How long is it likely the Sea Otter {Enlnjdm marina), found on 
the shores of Kamtchatka and the north-west coast of America, 
will survive, when his skin fetches sixty guineas in the London 
market? The Lared Seals, once widely dispersed in countless 
numbers, but for the wise measures of the American Government 
would i)robably ere this have been all but extinct. The Sperm 
Whale of the Southern Seas will be ruthlessly pursued till it does 
not pay commercially to fit out vessels for its pursuit, then lot us 
hope a remnant will be jireserved. I will not say a word about 
the Wolf, the Bear, and the Glutton. However interesting they 
may be to the zoologist, they certainly are not pleasant neighbours, 
but surely the Moose-deer and the Beaver * deserve more effectual 
protection at the hands of the Canadian Government ! In our 
own country, the noble Eod Deer, once so numerous, is only to bo 
found fully at large on Exmoor and the Highlands of Scotland; 
whilst the Eoe-deer, which formerly abounded in the forests which 
covered a large portion of England, is now found in a truly wild 
state only in Scotland. 
In our antipodes it seems probable, that the extinction of the 
* See A. Leith Adams’ ‘ Field and Forest Kambles in Ivvstern Canada,’ 
chapters 3 and 1. 
