[18] We are indebted to the English hunters of those days for all the information we possess as to the wild life of South Africa at that time. If there had not been amongst them men who knew also how to handle the pen, we should have been almost entirely without trustworthy information as to that period. I may take this opportunity of saying a word for the English “record-making sportsman,” who is not unfrequently the subject of false and unfounded invectives, which I can only describe as mostly full of fanciful fables. Other lands, other ways, and there are black sheep in every nation. In any case we may take English ideals of sport as our example, and also the regulations drawn up by English authorities for the protection of the animal world.
[19] In a review of my book _With Flashlight and Rifle_ (German edition).
[20] Sir William Cornwallis Harris must be considered as a quite trustworthy authority. His works are indeed the most complete first-hand evidence we have as to the state of the fauna of South Africa at the time.
[21] On the part of the Government and the local authorities everything that is possible is being done to settle this difficulty. But unfortunately their efforts seem to have little success.
[22] Cf. my book _With Flashlight and Rifle_, p. 736, where a statement by Professor P. Matschie, the Custodian of the Royal Zoological Museum at Berlin, will be found, bearing out the truth of what is here remarked.
[23] During the last few years handsome groups have also been set up in the museums of other places, such as Munich, Stuttgart, and Carlsruhe.
[24] The ibex, which was once also common in Germany, has been found by Dr. G. Merzbacher in the central Tian-Shan region in the form of _Ibex sibirica merzbacheri_: and two years ago by G. Leisewitz in such great numbers that the appearance of flocks of hundreds of them was a daily experience.
[25] The Hudson Bay Company put on the market in the year 1891 1,358 skins of the musk ox (_Ovibos moschatus_), but only 271 in the year 1901. In the year 1878 the same company sold 102,715 skins of the Canadian beaver, but only 44,200 in the year 1892. A striking example of the results of excessive exploitation of hunting grounds!