In Wildest Africa, Vol. 1

by C. G. Schillings

[12] Cf. also Ostasienfahrt, Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen eines Naturforschers, etc., von Dr. Franz Doflein, Leipzig, 1906.

[13] Cf. Friedlander, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms.

[14] In the market of Nice alone, according to official statistics, from November 1, 1881, to the beginning of February 1882, 1,318,356 little song-birds were put up for sale.

[15] Strict regulations have lately been put into force for the preservation of the last-named species. But, as the result of the merciless persecution to which it has been subjected, the sea-otter is all but extinct.

[16] While this book is passing through the press several correspondents have sent me an article published by Freiherr von Schrötter-Wohnsdorf in the Monatsheften des Allgemeinen Deutschen Jagdschutsvereins of August 24th, 1906. According to this article, during the year 1906, by ministerial orders, in four of the chief forest districts of East Prussia, sixty-seven head of wild elk were killed off, though hitherto the few remaining living specimens of the elk have been so carefully preserved both on public and private estates. This thorough-going course was adopted for the sake of the preservation of the woods from damage by the animals. That this should have been done in the case of a disappearing species of wild animal, hitherto so carefully preserved, and of which private individuals were allowed to shoot only male specimens, is in open contradiction with those views as to the necessity of protecting the rarer beauties of nature, which are making such progress every day. It seems therefore fitting that I should note the fact here as showing how well grounded is my opinion that the progress of civilised culture is destructive to those treasures of nature that have come down to us from primeval times.

[17] The author believes that he cannot better give expression to his views as to the preservation of the beauties of nature, than by reproducing an article on the appearance of the stork in the Soldin district, by Herr M. Kurth. He writes in Die Jagd, Illustrierte Wochenschrift für deutsche Jäger, May 13, 1906:

“As for the stork-shooting appointed by the District Committee of the districts of Soldin, Landsberg and Ost-Sternberg for the period from March 1 to June 15, it is to be remarked that the opinions held by sportsmen as to the damage done by storks, especially in reference to small game, are very much divided, and that not much can be put to the reckoning of ‘Brother Longlegs’ of those misdeeds that figure heavily in the accounts of other robbers, such as the crane, the magpie, and all kinds of native birds of prey, and the hedgehog, marten, and polecat. These one and all carry off nestlings, and most of them attack young leverets also. Now if we are to go for the stork, it should of course be done when he is to be found together in too great numbers; and this is entirely the idea of the District Committee. The neighbourhood of Balz bei Vietz on the Eastern Railway has always been remarkable for the number of its storks’ nests. One finds two of them on nearly every one of the old barns, a nest at each end of the roof. It was so even thirty years ago, and so it is to this day. But the proprietors of the barns never agree to the nests of the storks being destroyed, or any opposition made to the settling there of these trustful and friendly birds. And for what reasons precisely has ‘Friend Adebar’ settled in such numbers in this district? Well, here the far-spreading meadows of the Warthe, with their full scope for extended flight, offer him all the food he wants and to spare, and here the frogs’ legs must be particularly good. It may be that now and again a young partridge or a leveret strays into Mother Stork’s kitchen, but that is the exception. Now if people keep strictly to the object indicated by the District Committee, namely to bring down the numbers of the storks where there are too many of them, one may let it pass. But how many will out of a mere shooting-mania take aim continually at the harmless birds!—though such are never genuine sportsmen. How can this be checked? And it should not be forgotten that in the first week of April our African guests are to be found in hundreds along the Warthe brook, whence they then disperse to various parts of the neighbouring districts. Now it is to be hoped that no one will assume that the stork is to be found here ‘in too great numbers,’ and that therefore ‘one may blaze away at him.’ In some years this may possibly be the case, but if he were scared out of the district our landscape would be the poorer by the loss of the bird’s welcome cry, as has happened in the case of the heron and the cormorant in our district. This last-named bird comes now only seldom, and then only one at a time, to the Netze, near Driesen. There was a heronry formerly near Waldowstrenk in the Neumark district, but it disappeared ten years ago. We must hope that this will not be the fate of the stork, whose appearance has so many links with the poetry of our childhood, and that we shall not be deprived of his presence. What a pleasing sight it is when ‘Brother Longlegs’ with dignified walk stalks beside the mower at haymaking time, looking so confiding and fearless! And what a joy it is to old and young when the first stork of the season wheels in circles over the homestead, when for the first time he comes down to his old nest, and announces his arrival with a joyful outcry! Must not every sympathetic and thoughtful lover of nature be filled with sorrow and indignation when, on the pretext of petty thefts, but probably out of mere wanton love of destruction, attempts are made to drive out of our country this friendly bird, which is so pleasing an ornament of the landscape? It would really be a crime against the out-door beauty of our native land, and against nature all around us, if out of narrow-minded selfishness we were to extirpate the stork, as happened in recent times to that most splendidly coloured of our birds, the kingfisher, on mere suspicion of its being a ‘great destroyer’ of fish. Love of nature, joy in nature, is a valuable element in German feeling, and therefore, dear fellow sportsman, let us maintain our good character!”

[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.