tates which are still behind in this
movement may well give serious heed to his summons, and pass the new
laws that are so urgently demanded to save the vanishing remnant.

The New York Zoological Society, which is cooperating with many other
organizations in this great movement, sends forth this work in the
belief that there is no one who is more ardently devoted to the great
cause or rendering more effective service in it than William T.
Hornaday. We believe that this is a great book, destined to exert a
world-wide influence, to be translated into other languages, and to
arouse the defenders and lovers of our vanishing animal life before it
is too late.

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN,
10 December, 1912. _President of the New York Zoological Society_

* * * * *

PREFACE

The writing of this book has taught me many things. Beyond question, we
are exterminating our finest species of mammals, birds and fishes
_according to law!_

I am appalled by the mass of evidence proving that throughout the entire
United States and Canada, in every state and province, the existing
legal system for the preservation of wild life is fatally defective.
There is not a single state in our country from which the killable game
is not being rapidly and persistently shot to death, legally or
illegally, very much more rapidly than it is breeding, with
extermination for the most of it close in sight. This statement is not
open to argument; for millions of men know that it is literally true. We
are living in a fool's paradise.

The rage for wild-life slaughter is far more prevalent to-day throughout
the world than it was in 1872, when the buffalo butchers paved the
prairies of Texas and Colorado with festering carcasses. From one end of
our continent to the other, there is a restless, resistless desire to
"kill, _kill!_"

I have been shocked by the accumulation of evidence showing that all
over our country and Canada fully nine-tenths of our protective laws
have practically been dictated by the killers of the game, and that in
all save a very few instances the hunters have been exceedingly careful
to provide "open seasons" for slaughter, as long as any game remains to
kill!

_And yet, the game of North America does not belong wholly and
exclusively to the men who kill! The other ninety-seven per cent of the
People have vested rights in it, far exceeding those of the three per
cent. Posterity has claims up