rocks and black desolation. Still, there is plenty of fur and feather
worth preserving. But nothing can save it unless conservation replaces
the present reckless destruction.


DESTRUCTION

When rich virgin soil is first farmed it yields a maximum harvest for
a minimum of human care. But presently it begins to fail, and will
fail altogether unless man returns to it in one form some of the
richness he expects to get from it in another. Now, exploited wild
life fails even faster under wasteful treatment; but, on the other
hand, with hardly any of the trouble required for continuous farming,
quickly recovers itself by being simply let alone. So when we consider
how easily it can be preserved in Labrador, and how beneficial its
preservation is to all concerned, we can understand how the wanton
destruction going on there is quite as idiotic as it is wrong.

Take "egging" as an example. The Indians, Eskimos and other beasts of
prey merely preserved the balance of nature by the toll they used to
take. No beast of prey, not even the white man, will destroy his own
stock supply of food. But with the nineteenth century came the
white-man market "eggers", systematically taking or destroying every
egg in every place they visited. Halifax, Quebec and other towns were
centres of the trade. The "eggers" increased in numbers and
thoroughness till the eggs decreased in the more accessible spots
below paying quantities. But other egging still goes on unchecked. The
game laws of the province of Quebec distinctly state: "It is forbidden
to take nests or eggs of wild birds at any time". But the swarms of
fishermen who come up the north shore of the St. Lawrence egg wherever