not reduce the slaughter of deer in this whole vast region of southern California.  Were the single Game Refuge, which might under the law be designated, to be placed in southern California, even although it embraced the entire area of the seven southern reserves, it would not aid to any great extent in preventing the extinction of game in the region of the Sierra Reserve, of the Stanislaus Reserve, or of the great reserves which are doubtless soon to be created in the northern half of the State.  A bill so conceived would not fulfill the purpose of its creation.

[Illustration:  TEMISKAMING MOOSE.]

There are just as cogent reasons of a positive nature why many small refuges are preferable to a few large ones.  It is said that in the vicinity of George Vanderbilt’s game preserves at Biltmore, North Carolina, deer, when started by dogs even fifteen or twenty miles away, will seek shelter within the limits of that protected forest, knowing perfectly well that once within its bounds they will not be disturbed.  The same may be observed in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National Park; the bears, for instance, a canny folk, and shrewd to read the signs of the times, seem to be well aware that they are not to be disturbed near the hotels, and they show themselves at such places without fear; at the same time that outside the Park (and when the early snow is on the ground their tracks are often observed going both out and in) these same beasts are very shy indeed.  The hunter soon discovers that it is with the greatest difficulty that one ever sees them at all outside of the bounds of the Park.  Bears, as well as deer, adapt themselves to the exigencies of the situation; the grizzly, since the white man stole from him and the Indian the whole face of the earth, has become a night-ranging instead of a diurnal creature.  The deer, we may safely rest assured, makes quite as close a study of humans as man does of the deer.  It is a question of life and death with them that they should understand him and his methods.  Both the deer and the hunters would profit by the widest possible distribution of these protected areas.  Each section of the State is entitled to the benefit to be derived from their presence in its vicinity.  Moreover, and I believe that this is a consideration of no slight moment, the creation of many small refuges, not too close together, would obviate one great difficulty which threatens to wreck the entire scheme.  There have appeared signs of opposition in certain quarters to the creation in the various reserves of game refuges by Federal power on the ground that this would be to surrender to the Government at Washington authority which should be solely exercised by the State.  In a certain sense it is the old issue of State rights.  Where this feeling exists it is adhered to with extraordinary tenacity, and it is as catching as the measles; just so soon as one State takes this stand, another is liable to raise the same issue.  They are jealous of