and further north.  Seals are diminishing.  Whales are beginning to disappear.  Fur-bearing animals can hardly hold their own much longer in face of the ever increasing demand for their pelts and the more systematic invasion of their range.  The opening up of the country in the north will mean the extinction of the great migrating herd of barren-ground caribou, unless protection is enforced.  The coast birds are going fast.  Some very old men can still remember the great auk, which is now as extinct as the dodo.  Elderly men have eaten the Labrador duck, which has not been seen alive for thirty years.  And young men will certainly see the end of the Hudsonian and Eskimo curlews very soon, under present conditions.  The days of commercial “egging” on a large scale are over, because eggs of the final lay were taken like the rest, and the whole bird life was depleted below paying quantities.  But “egging” still goes on in other ways, especially at the hands of Newfoundlanders, who are wantonly wasteful in their methods, unlike the coast people, who only take what the birds will replace.  The Newfoundlanders and other strangers gather all the eggs they see, put them into water, and throw away every one that floats.  Thus many more bird lives are destroyed than eggs are eaten or sold, because schooners appear towards the end of the regular laying season, when most of the eggs are about to hatch out—­and these are the ones that float.  But even greater destruction is done when a schooner stays several days in the same place.  For then the crew go round, first smashing every egg they see, and afterwards gathering every egg they see, because they know the few they find the second time must have been newly laid.

Many details were given of other forms of destruction, and some details of the revolting cruelties practised there, as in every other place where wild life is grossly abused instead of being sanely used.  All classes of legitimate human interest were dealt with in turn; and it was shown that the present system—­or want of system—­was bad for each one:  bad for such wild life as must still be used for necessary food, bad for every kind of business in the products of wild life, bad for the future of sport, bad for the pursuits of science, and bad for the prospects of wild “zoos”.  The Address ended with a plea for conservation, and pointed out that the only class of people who could possibly be benefitted under present conditions were those who were ready to destroy both the capital and interest of any natural resources for the sake of snatching a big and immediate, but really criminal, profit.

The Address was sent out for review to several hundreds of general and specialist newspapers, and, thanks to the expert help so freely given me, ran the gauntlet of the press without finding one dissentient voice against it.  Copies were also sent to every local expert known, as well as to those experts in the world outside who were the most likely to be interested.  Three classes of invaluable expert opinion were thus obtained for the Supplement.  The first class may be called experts on Labrador; the second, experts on wild life in general; and the third, experts on the public aspects of the question.  All three were entirely in favour of general conservation for the whole of Labrador and the immediate establishment of special sanctuaries, as recommended in the Address.