I lO 
THE VANISHING AFRICAN FAUNA. 
(Reprinted, by kind permission, from The Standard.) 
HE rapid diminution in the numbers of many kinds of 
big game in Africa, and the extinction, within living 
memory, of some others, are matter of common know- 
ledge to sportsmen and naturalists. That wild animals 
are always driven back before advancing civilisation is a truism. 
The slaughter of the African fauna, however, has been so great 
and so purposeless, that could the story of the last hundred years 
be told in all its fulness it would appear incredible. Naturally, 
the elephant claims first place. It is still fairly abundant in 
Central Africa, but in South Africa, where it formerly swarmed, 
it is rapidly approaching extinction. Oswell, the friend of 
Livingstone, who first visited Africa on a hunting expedition 
in 1844, has told the story, all too briefly, of his experiences, 
and expressed the opinion that to our great-great-grandchildren 
the African elephant will be as the mammoth is to us. Kirby 
clothes the same opinion in almost identical language, and after 
urging that the past, which cannot be recalled, should induce 
sportsmen to shoot fairly, and be satisfied with enough, is justly 
severe on those who “ deliberately bowl over ewes and cows ” 
with the one idea of topping the record. The traffic in ivory 
means the extinction of the elephant ; but to kill an elephant for 
its tusks seems the worst possible use to which one can put such 
a mighty beast. Sir Samuel Baker pleaded for protection, and 
still more strongly that some attempt should be made to domes- 
ticate the African elephant, condemning the apathy even of 
European settlers, who have hitherto ignored the capabilities 
of this useful creature. When the late Sultan of Zanzibar 
visited our Zoological Gardens, and saw Jumbo carrying loads 
of delighted children, he asked why these animals were not 
utilised in his own country. The late Mr. Bartlett was always 
interested in the subject, and advocated, as does Mr. Sclater, 
the Secretary of the Zoological Society, the bringing over of 
trained Indian elephants, and natives used to keddah work, to 
East Africa. Gordon, too, hoped to employ the elephant in 
transport in Africa, and, shortly before the fall of Khartoum, 
wrote to Mr. Sclater on the subject. In Cape Colony the 
elephant has been protected since 1830, a permit being necessaiy 
to kill a single specimen : there is also a measure of protection 
m the East African Protectorate, and in German East Africa, 
where a permit for two elephants and two rhinoceroses costs 
^25. The hippopotamus appears to be extinct in Natal, where 
the last specimen, a fine old bull, now in the Durban Museum, 
was killed about twelve months ago, the Government having 
consented to the extermination of the small herd living in Sea 
