Part 17

Not by far-away Lake Nakuro alone has “the Spell of the Elelescho” lived. It has lived, and still lives, all over the world; only that it goes by other names, and is linked with other symbols.

In the brief summer of the Polar regions, battling with the snow and ice and the long night, it lives in the few stunted willows and the scanty reindeer-moss. It can only be fully understood where the ungainly walrus, the mighty Polar bear, coloured like his own snowfields, and the herds of fur-adorned musk oxen and reindeer give life to the wilderness, and millions of sea-birds cover the cliffs, or wheel shrieking through the air. To all these creatures the appearance of man in these wide regions is so strange and unaccustomed that they show no fear of him, and even come hurrying up from all sides to look curiously at this strange new being.

In the high mountain regions of Central Asia, too, this spell survives, associated with the flocks of those timid creatures the primitive wild sheep, with the graceful wild goats, with the stately ibex, and with the life and movement of the countless huge bears of the mountains, and with a strange flora that I myself have never looked upon, but of whose existence I am as persuaded as of that of the spell itself.

It is to be found in the jungles of India, whence the tolerant natives have never driven it out. They have not expelled the animal world from its paradise. There in the region of the lotus-flower the spell may perhaps be recognised on still, moonlit nights.

It survives everywhere: in the Australian bush, in the New and the Old World, on all islands, in all rivers and waters, in the life and movement of the waves and depths of the ocean, so full of secrets everywhere; in a word, where man has not yet driven it away.

Once it lived everywhere in Germany, and even to-day it is still to be found in many places. It has its being where the mighty elk made its home on moor and marsh-land, and our forefathers hunted the aurochs and the bison in the primitive forest. To-day it is associated with the edelweiss and the chamois in the Alps; it has its being in the oak and beech woods, and where the green current of the Rhine flows down, or where the stag sends afar his cry of challenge to his rival, and the huntsman makes his way over the moor.

There one still experiences the spell of the Elelescho. But everywhere, all over the world, everywhere in our Fatherland, it once lived and held sway.

We may hope that the intimate and beautiful relations that the German sportsman establishes between himself and nature in his Fatherland will for a long, long time be handed down from generation to generation, and thus result in the maintenance and preservation of the noble old spell of the woodland and the wilderness. The ideal of true German sportsmanship has been developed in as high and full a sense as that of fair play in sport in England.

Both of these ideals will be judged in unfriendly fashion only by those who regard them from a distorted point of view. The English ideal of sport is winning the world to itself; the German ideal must do the same.

Coming from a good German school of sport, I consider myself fortunate in having learned to know the wonderful animal world of Africa. There is no doubt whatever that I must ascribe to the influence of this school the fact that my accounts of what I had experienced and seen met with such an appreciative reception both at home and abroad.

How wonderful is the chase in Germany! The primitive attraction for the chase must be a part of every man. One need only once have seen the excitement that seizes upon a gathering of thousands if on a sudden a hare or some other wild creature comes into sight. At such a moment, almost without exception, every one of them is on the move, without the least reflection, and even notwithstanding the consciousness that in no case can he himself secure the prize. It is the call of a strong impulse deep rooted in men. But in our Fatherland how grandly and nobly what we mean by “true sportsmanship” has developed out of this primitive instinct!

A certain kind of organisation of the business of the chase must have been in existence even in primeval times. Those who have made a study of this department of the life of nomadic hunters in many lands tell us that tribes and groups of families hunt only in well-defined areas, and as they value their lives do not venture to pass these boundaries. I have learned the same thing by my own personal experience of the Wandorobo and other nomad huntsmen of the African plateau. It must therefore have been the case everywhere, from the times when primitive men, the cave-dwellers, began their struggle with the mighty beasts of primeval days, down to our own times, when the chase is more and more regulated till at last it becomes the exclusive property of the owner of the land.

As a consequence of this right came measures for game preservation both against the interference of the stranger sportsman, and as regards the wild creatures themselves. Increasing knowledge taught the hunter that he could not kill more than a certain number of wild animals without extirpating them entirely in his district. Hence grew up our complex game-laws of to-day, and the general feeling that our hunting grounds should be used in as intelligent a way as possible. In Germany this problem has been solved to a remarkable extent. German sport has an important influence on the welfare of the people. Great numbers of our people are strengthened in body and mind by the chase, and, thanks to it, considerable sums of money are added to the resources of the country folk.

According to a moderate estimate there are now in Germany upwards of half a million sportsmen. Each year they kill about 40,000 head of red and fallow deer, about 200,000 roebuck, 4,000,000 hares, 4,000,000 partridges, and 400,000 wild ducks, in all some 25,000,000 kilograms (over 50,000,000 lb.) of wild game, of a value of 25,000,000 marks (£1,250,000), and forming nearly one per cent. of the total meat supply of Germany. The game leases bring in about 40,000,000 marks annually (£2,000,000). But these very sportsmen, who every year kill such a large quantity of wild animals, must at the same time be protectors and guardians of this same animal life! Strange as it may seem, many species of wild animals would have been long ago extinct if there were no sportsmen. For imperative reasons, the hunter must at the same time undertake the part of protector.

But this idea ought to be to include a great deal more than is now the case. As I have already said, no nation has known so well how to form a beautiful and poetical ideal of the chase and the spirit of sport as the Germans have done. But it is not to be denied that this perfect development, even in its very completeness, has in a certain sense become one-sided, in so far as sportsmen restrict their protection and guardianship to certain species of animals; one-sided, too, inasmuch as to a certain extent they regard their mission from the point of view of a close corporation. In this there is a certain advantage, but also a certain amount of danger now that, as a result of the rapid progress of civilisation, changes are introduced in every department of life so much more quickly than in earlier times.

Huntsmen and fishermen desire the complete extermination of all kinds of animals that they consider to be a cause of injury to their sport. The result is the destruction of many kinds of animals that are beautiful in form and constitute an ornament of the landscape. By the same kind of reasoning sportsmen, in their capacity of landlords and forest owners, ought to demand the extermination of the wild animals that obtain their food from field and forest. Naturally sportsmen do not want this, but they should, as far as may be, let themselves be guided by higher points of view. This is the case already in many instances. For example, as an instance of zealous game supervision inspired by scientific principles, we have lately had to welcome a valuable idea of Forest Commissioner Count Bernstorff. According to his plan, small labels that will not annoy the animals (the so-called “Game marks”) are attached near the ears of young roebucks and red deer. Thus their resting-places, their movements, their growth, can be carefully observed.... We are, therefore, actually living in a time when to a certain extent each individual head of game is numbered!

Interesting and valuable as such measures may be, should we not extend our loving care also to the animals that, though they are not reckoned as game, yet adorn and give animation to the land we live in? Some great landlords have given a bright example of progress in this direction. Thus in Hungary there are sporting estates on which wolf and bear are not completely exterminated, and in Germany estates on which the fox is spared to a certain extent. The result has been to the advantage of stags’ antlers and bucks’ horns on the estates in question. English landlords allow a free home to a pair of peregrine falcons or eagles, so as not to allow these beautiful birds to be completely extirpated.

From these examples it is clear that there can be various opinions as to the view generally taken with regard to “predatory animals.” If there is not merely a selfish protection for game animals, but also protection for the other mammals and birds, we shall thus preserve from extinction some of the glorious forms of the realm of nature, and prevent their being sacrificed to narrow interests. There is food for thought in the fact that (as I have often had occasion to observe in Africa) in primitive countries there is to be found an astounding abundance of animal life. Since prehistoric times man has been engaged in hunting with his simple weapons without, on the whole, very much diminishing the number of animals. A striking proof that the destruction of wild life is the work of the Europeans themselves, and of the native hunters carrying firearms under their authority, is afforded by the fate of the North American buffalo, the whales, walruses, and seals of the frozen seas, and finally by that of the elephant in certain districts and of the South African fauna taken as a whole.

We should not therefore act so rigorously in the proscription of our so-called “predatory” animals. Yet, for instance, my near neighbour, Freiherr H. Geyer von Schweppenberg, has lately shown that our pretty water-hen (Gallinula chloropus, L.) can do a great deal of damage to grass and corn.

In South Africa what are called “poisoning clubs” have been organised, which aim at the extermination of “noxious animals” by poison. The use of poison ought to be entirely forbidden by legal enactments, with the exception, perhaps, of its administration for scientific purposes. The strychnine canister--the use of which ought only to be allowed, and that in exceptional cases, to those who are making scientific collections--is now making its appearance everywhere all over the world. I have had news from the most distant countries of its employment, unhappily with far too great success. It is already some time since the last Lammergeier of the German hill districts fell a victim to it. It is thinning to frightful extent the numbers of the bears in Eastern Asia and other countries, though these are quite harmless to man. But in our Fatherland a completely organised “poison business” has grown up, which is a very serious matter.

I should like also to advocate strongly the legal prohibition of the use of pole-traps, to which all our owls and birds of prey fall victims.

If we go on as we are going, the time cannot be far distant when we shall have to strike out of the list of the living several interesting members of our native fauna. In North America, in recent times, the following species, amongst others, have some of them become extinct, others extremely scarce: the Californian grizzly bear (Ursus horribilis californicus), the San Joaquin Valley elk, or wapiti (Cervus nannodes), Stone’s reindeer (Rangifer stonei), the prongbuck or pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), the Pallas cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspillicatus), the Labrador duck (Camptolaimus labradorius), the ivory woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), the scotar (Aix sponsa), several other species of birds, and finally the American woodcock. This last falls a victim chiefly to professional hunters, who are accustomed to kill it by hundreds in its winter quarters.

“This list could perhaps be extended,” Mr. R. Rathbun, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute (whose kindness I have to thank for this information), adds at the end of his letter.

His communications have also been of special interest to me because they awoke in me old recollections. In the ‘forties of the past century my father received a letter from North America in which he was informed that on ground over which the New York of to-day extends, one could shoot in a single day hundreds of woodcock. I myself, in my young days, used to take care of a beautifully coloured parrot, of a kind that since then has been almost extirpated, and is hardly to be obtained any longer. Connurus carolinensis is the name of this beautiful species of parrot, which also appears on the list of extinct animals of North America. There, too, men have begun to give strong practical expression to the movement for animal protection. In sanctuaries like Yellowstone Park there is complete protection for all animal life, including beasts of prey, and the bears have become so tame that they allow visitors to come within a few paces of them. Count E. Bernstorff, who received permission to shoot one of the few bisons still preserved in the State of Wyoming, says “One might take the way in which the animal life of America is protected as an example in securing still better preservation for the survivors of the primeval wild life of Africa. One must acknowledge that the Americans and their noble President, a brave sportsman, are now doing all that is possible in this matter.”

President Roosevelt, in fact, has come forward manfully in the lists as a champion of widely extended protection for all the beauties of nature, and especially of the animal world. He endeavours by his words and writings to work effectually for these great and noble ideas, which bring to all men delight, profit, and contentment.

Brought up in the school of German sportsmanship, I had later on to change completely my view as to our distinction between “noxious animals” and “beasts of prey.” The African wilderness swarms with beasts of prey, and yet also swarms with useful wild animals. The waters of Africa teem with the fish destroyers, and also teem with fish. We should not therefore act so short-sightedly and pedantically. We should not be so eager to hunt down the last fox, the last pine-marten. The nesting-places of herons and cormorants are becoming ever fewer; the places where the handsome black tree storks build in our German Fatherland can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand; and the same is nearly true of the nesting-places of our rarer birds of prey.

The killing of a wild cat has already become an event; it is the same with the eagle-owl.

Out of the mass of literature of recent date bearing on the subject, I take a single book. In a very readable essay, Der Uhu in Böhmen, Kurt Loos shows that only a few years ago this interesting and beautiful large owl (Bubo maximus) was to be found making its home to the extent of some fifty pairs in thirty-five districts of Bohemia; now only eighteen pairs are living there, in ten districts. The author demands protection for the surviving pairs of owls, as natural objects that should be preserved, and he makes out a strong case for his proposal. Röntgen-ray photographs are among the illustrations of this interesting work, and they suggest that in times when one can do one’s work with such excellent appliances, there is all the more reason for avoiding the thoughtless neglect of legacies left to us by Nature from the days of its primeval beauty.