some of the North Italian valleys for the benefit of the King and his guests. In Spain, outside of the royal preserves, destruction is understood to be practically unchecked; poaching is rife, and there is little attempt at preserving the game. Turkey regards its game with characteristic indifference, existing restrictions, which may indirectly act for the good of the game, being aimed rather against the indiscriminate carrying of firearms.

The case which has most interest for English sportsmen is that of the Scandinavian elk. For many years that noble beast went unprotected. In 1894 alone, a thousand elk were killed in Norway.* Then native opinion, which moves slowly in the far north, appears to have awakened to two facts. In the first place, the elk was sadly diminishing in numbers. In the second, its destruction was being compassed almost wholly by wealthy foreigners, who were willing to pay handsomely for the privilege. A considerable increase in the tax on such sport would have the double result of increasing a scanty revenue and deterring many from the work of extermination; and this object has just been effectually achieved by the Storthing. The three years' close-time for the Swedish elk expires with the past year, and the coming summer will witness the enforcement of the new law, which limits the season for killing the animal in Norway to a period of twenty days from September 10th.

In many European countries the foreigner is more heavily taxed for his sport than the native, and this is also, as we shall see, particularly noticeable in the various States of North America. The native' question is, in Africa, among the most serious in its bearing on laws for protecting the big game. In North America, indeed, the question does not press, for the Indian is in a fair way of following the bison to extinction. In India, again, few of the natives are meat-eaters, and the majority of them follow the more peaceful calling of agriculture. But in Africa we have the serious case of natives who, though a meat diet is not indispensable to their welfare, kill large quantities of game, mostly for the market. The opinion of a well-known sportsman, whose words carry great authority, has already been cited to the effect that the natives are the chief offenders in Africa, and that any measure of protection that should fail to take account of their operations would be ineffective. Already there exist game-laws over the greater part of Africa. Morocco is an exception in this respect, as it is in the fact of still lying under native administration.

*Land and Water,' October 2nd, 1897, p. 538,

It would be against the principles of Mohammedan fatalism to make any provision for the supplies of future generations. Moreover, the game of Morocco is not very valuable, being restricted, in the more frequented parts, to gazelles and wild pig. The bear and the stag of the Atlas have been pronounced by a recently returned traveller to be probably absent from the Moroccan portion of that range, and the aoudad, or 'mouflon,' found only on the higher slopes rarely visited by Europeans, is not seriously menaced by the obsolete guns and indifferent marksmanship of the natives. Close times and heavy licences have long been in force in other parts of the continent, at any rate since the inauguration of the thirteen-year-old Game Protection Association. But close times, which work smoothly enough in densely populated European countries, where the efforts of an adequate and widely distributed police are supported by a large contingent of interested landowners, are very much less effective in the vast interior of the African continent. It is of course possible to prohibit during nine months of the year the export of ivory and trophies at the coast, but there is nothing to prevent gunners amassing the spoils of the chase during the rest of the year. It is true that the imposition of heavy licences, limiting the bag to so many head of the rarer kinds of game, may act as a deterrent; but it tends to stimulate those who pay it to get, if possible, their full money's-worth-a natural attitude which the licensee will be found to take up from the New Forest to the Rocky Mountains.

Want of space precludes any attempt at exhaustive investigation of the different enactments now ruling in North America and South Africa, but a brief enumeration of the chief provisions may not be without interest. Antelopes are protected in Natal, in the Orange Free State, in the Transvaal, Zululand, Swaziland, and elsewhere, for periods varying in length from four to eight months and generally covering the summer months. There are in addition licences of various amounts, up to as much as 751. in Bechuanaland and 501. in Portuguese South East Africa. Nor are the penalties by any means merely nominal, for it is on record that two Europeans were fined 1207, each for shooting two white rhinoceroses in a Zululand preserve, and served in default a year's imprisonment.* Both close times and licences exist on a somewhat complicated basis over the whole of North America. In British Columbia, for instance, caribou, moose, deer, wapiti, mountain goat, and

*The Field,' September 25th, 1897, p. 503.

mountain sheep are protected for nearly nine months in the year; and a fifty-dollar licence, imposed on all non-residents, limits the bag of the holder in each season to ten deer, five each of caribou, mountain goat, and mountain sheep, two bull wapiti and two bull moose. This has, it will be seen, the very desirable effect of making it no longer worth the gunner's while to visit British Columbia for commercial purposes, and thus restricts the destruction of the game to the smaller class of bona fide sportsmen, though Mr. Baillie-Grohman regards the game-laws of British Columbia as inadequately enforced and framed to hamper the tourist rather than to protect the game. In New Brunswick, moose and caribou entail on residents a licence of only two dollars, but non-residents have to pay twenty. It is in Newfoundland that this taxing of the visitor reaches the highest point, for he is compelled to take out a licence costing no less than a hundred dollars. Such high licences are most desirable everywhere, but, if they are to attain the end of preservation which we have in view, they should be imposed on visitors and residents alike.

Enough has perhaps been said to show that the world is waking, even late in the day, to the need for reform. Even in India there has of late years been, from the direction of Kashmir, some movement in favour of protecting the big game, particularly in the direction of closing certain areas and absolutely protecting a few of the more immediately threatened species for several years. The most important theatre, however, of animal extermination, and the one to which these remarks have in consequence been in the main devoted, is South Africa.

The protection of our remaining big game is an international interest, for science is of no nationality. It is the cheap amusement of a certain class to belittle the study of field natural history, and even of the more scientific investigation of animals, on the ground that it has no bearing on the practical issues of life. Yet malaria is thought to be ending its career of evil on earth, and its banishment, if accomplished in the manner at present hoped for, will be due to the study of a group of insects hitherto regarded only in the light of tormentors. Can it for a moment be reasonably doubted that all the beasts and birds have their messages for us, when further study shall have prepared our understanding? The dodo, moa, and great auk, all extinct within modern times, perished while still, to all practical purposes, unknown to science. Some may be willing to insist that these species held no secret that may not with equal facility be learnt from their

surviving relatives. We prefer the more contrite spirit that feels shame that man should have exterminated animals without even taking the trouble to understand them. Science protests with all its might against this foolish and barbarous destruction of earth's creatures without care for the species. Humanity cries aloud against the spoilers on grounds both of economy and of sentiment. Every argument that establishes the final utility of these animals when the rifle has laid them low only strengthens the case of those who plead for moderation and for measures that, by at least protecting the females and the young, shall ensure their continuance to future generations.

The greed for trophies is a part of the modern curse of recordbreaking, in which the healthfulness of moderate rivalry is vulgarised by playing to the gallery. The crowd cannot, it is true, applaud the sportsman as it does the cricketer, but it can gape in admiration over the trophies which he brings back and which perhaps his followers shot. The slaughter proceeds apace and is difficult indeed to stay. We have taken account of some of the measures currently in force, as also of the difficulties in the way of reform. The new century might most happily be inaugurated by an international movement of mercy to the beasts. M. Foà, a hunter of distinction, suggests a parliament of the nations, a kind of Zoological Peace Conference, to enact the necessary measures. Once, when the earth was younger, the mountains and prairies were a paradise of game. It would be foolish to hope for the restoration of such abundance; but let us not recklessly throw away the wealth of wild nature which still remains. The mischief has gone far, and much of it is irreparable; but there is still time to see that no more is done.

ART. III. THE PLAYS OF GERHART HAUPTMANN.

1. Vor Sonnenaufgang: Sociales Drama. Ste Auflage, 1898. -Die Versunkene Glocke: Ein deutsches Märchendrama. 30te Auflage, 1897.-Fuhrmann Henschel: Schauspiel in fünf Acten, 1899. By Gerhart Hauptmann. Berlin:

S. Fischer.

2. The Plays of Gerhart Hauptmann. [Lonely Lives; Hannele ; The Weavers.] Translated by William Archer and Mary Three vols. London: William Heinemann,

Morison. 1894-99.

3. The Sunken Bell. By Gerhart Hauptmann. Translated by C. H. Meltzer. New York: Russell, 1899.

4. Gerhart Hauptmann: sein Lebensgang und seine Dichtung. By Paul Schlenther. Berlin: S. Fischer, 1898. 5. Gerhart Hauptmann. By Adolf Bartels.

E. Felber, 1897.

Weimar :

6. Das deutsche Drama in den litterarischen Bewegungen der Gegenwart. 4te Auflage. By Professor Berthold Litzmann. Hamburg and Leipzig: L. Voss, 1897.

ON

N New Year's Day, 1863, there was a christening party at the sign of The Prussian Crown' in Upper Salzbrunn, in Silesia. The father was mine host, Robert Hauptmann. His wife was the daughter of an Inspector of Springs in the local principality of Pless; and the son whom they brought to the font, and who had been born on the previous 15th of November, received the name of Gerhart.

Mine host in those days was a man of presence and esteem. He ruled The Prussian Crown' as the second monarch in direct line, and his pleasant inn and posting-house enjoyed the regular patronage of an annual company of visitors. Physicians praised the medicinal springs of Salzbrunn; the fine air of the hills blew its own praises in the traveller's face; and Robert Hauptmann kept a decent cellar and courteous entertainment for his guests. These trooped to Salzbrunn from all quarters of Germany. From Breslau and Poland in the east, from Dresden and Saxony in the west, across the Bohemian border, and even from far-away Berlin, men came to drink the waters, and put up at the sign of the 'Crown.' The princely proprietor of the Baths made Robert Hauptmann his tenant, and in young Gerhart's early years his father was honourably and justly a person of importance in his native place.

The children of the inn were not at the call of the visitors.