to-morrow. But the more city-bound he grows, the more he yearns to renew the primal joy of Earth within himbody, soul and spirit-by some communion with 'Nature's old felicities.' And should he not find a land of hope for this in Canada? But he will not find one long, unless we safeguard our higher rights in Nature here at once and thoroughly. We are a new people, with a most exploitable country and all the means of destruction ready to our hand, but without much self-restraint in using them. We have a common cry, that what we need is not conservation but development. This may be true enough in many things, but not in the matter of wild life. We like 'a business proposition.' Well and good! But wild life is capital, even more than our forests are. Exploit it beyond a certain point, and both capital and income are lost for ever. Keep its capital and use its income, and it will benefit both ourselves and our posterity. Which, then, is the better business proposition'-conservation or exploitation at any cost? To say wild life must go to make room for modern civilisation is pure nonsense. Wild life is one of the most precious heirlooms that modern civilisation could possibly enjoy; and there is still plenty of room for it in Canada. More than this, there is plenty of room to further all the legitimate interests of all the three classes of people most nearly concerned-lovers of Nature, sportsmen, and dealers in animal products-and room to further them all together, in one comprehensive scheme of conservation.

But politics, exploitation and wantonness are dragons in the way. We have outlived our cruder pioneering age, but not the now perverted spirit which it left behind it'There's plenty more where that came from.' Thousands of fishermen are still wantonly destroying millions of bird-lives, simply to get a few fresh eggs. They first smash every egg they see, and then come back later to gather every egg they see, because it must have been laid in the meantime. The same spirit pervades other classes. One of the greatest employers in the Gulf thought me only a fool for my pains when I declined to join an outof-season shoot. Why, don't you know Indians can shoot "necessary food" at any time? and we're all Indians here.' Exploitation is even worse. Whales are being exterminated. Seals will follow. Inland trapping and

hunting is reaching the danger point. And the worst of it is that those men who, like the Indians, would prefer to use the income of wild life and keep the capital intact are at such a disadvantage beside the ruthless exploiters that they must either do the same or give up in despair. Politics complete the tale. We are so much engrossed in personal business that we have hardly any effective attention to spare for national affairs. The result is that politics run to seed and politicians 'make a good paying job of it.' Down the Lower St Lawrence no poacher is ever convicted unless he votes the wrong way, or his prosecutor has a stronger pull' than his own.

The enforcement of existing laws and the establishment of sanctuaries as overflowing reservoirs of wild life would benefit every class except one. And why should this one vile class of exploiters be allowed to destroy a natural paradise and leave nothing but the dust of death behind it? The opportunity is still there. But if we do not take it now we shall soon have lost one of the greatest possessions that a bountiful Nature has ever given to man.

The Laurentian waters have many a place well fitted for a sanctuary:-in Newfoundland; on the Magdalens, Bird Rocks and Bonaventure Island; along the North Shore in several spots, from the sea to the Saguenay; and, again, on Lakes Huron and Superior. My own, if I could make one, should be along some great reach of northern coastline, far down the Lower St Lawrence. I would, however, have at least two more in other parts of Labrador, the second on the Atlantic, and the third on Hudson Bay. No better country could be found to grow wild life in. Labrador has an area of eleven Englands, with a permanent population of only 20,000 and a floating one of 40,000 more. One England will suffice for all the farming and mining that can ever be done and all the water-power machinery that can ever be employed there. Reasonable lumbering should not denude more than one such area. So at least nine Englands would remain, perfectly fitted for hunting-grounds, game preserves and sanctuaries, and not at all well fitted for anything else. The three coast sanctuaries would be ideal places for all northern sea birds and sea mammals. A sanctuary for the roving whales may seem chimerical.

But, combined with seasonal protection outside, it would probably succeed. The seals, even the migrating ones, present an easier though still an international problem.

What magnificent wild 'Zoos' we might have! And nothing like so bleak and remote as people think. The Labrador peninsula, in its fullest extent, reaches from the latitude of Greenland down to that of Paris. It lies exactly half-way, and in the direct line, between London and our own North-West. And its Atlantic and St Lawrence sanctuaries would be found among archipelagoes and fiords that could not suit the purpose better, even if they had been made expressly for it.

Here I would have seals and whales of all kinds, from the common but timid little harbour seal to the big horseheads and the gigantic hooded seals, the grizzlies of the water; and from the smallest of all whales, the twentyfoot little white whale, miscalled the porpoise, all the way up to the 'right' or Greenland whale, big as any monster of old romance. The white whales are still comparatively plentiful in certain spots. I have seen a run of them go by, uninterruptedly, for over an hour, many abreast, all swimming straight ahead and making the air tumultuous with the snorts and plunges that accompanied every breath. This, however, is rare. You will generally see them at their individual best in bright sunny weather, when their glistening white, fish-shaped bodies come curveting out of the water in all directions; or when they play follow-my-leader and look like a dazzling sea-serpent half-a-mile long.

But in the middle of all this and the corresponding flip-flop game of the seals, you may see both white whales and seals streaking away for dear life. And no wonder, for over there is that unmistakeable dorsal fin, clean-cut and high, jet black and wicked-looking, like the flag of the nethermost pirate. It belongs to the well-named Killer, the Orca Gladiator of zoology, often miscalled the grampus. He is at once the bull-dog, the wolf and the lion of the sea, but stronger than any twenty-foot lion, hungrier than a whole pack of wolves, readier to fight to the death than any bull-dog, and, with all this, of such lightning speed that he can catch the white whale, who can overhaul the swiftest seal, who, in his turn, can catch the fastest fish that swims. He

is the champion fighter and feeder of all creation. A dozen fat seals will only whet his appetite for more. With a single comrade he will bite the biggest 'right' whale to death in no time. I have known him catch a white whale off Green Island Reef and be away again like a flash, gripping it thwartwise in his mouth. Think of a beast of prey that can run off with an elephant and still outpace a motor boat! Fortunately for the rest of the seafolk, the Killer is not very plentiful, since he is almost as destructive as civilised man.

the sea.

Bigger again than the Killer, twice his size at least, is the great, fat, good-natured humpback, the clown of On a fine, calm day the humpbacks will gambol to their hearts' content, lolloping about on the surface, or shooting up from the depths with a tremendous leap that carries their enormous bodies clear out of the water and high into the air, and shows the whole of their immense black-and-white-striped bellies. Then they turn over forwards, to come down with a sumphing smacker that sets the waves rocking and drenches an acre or two with flying spray. And last, and biggest of all, bigger than any other living creature, is the Greenland whale, the Right Whale' par excellence; and nothing the animal kingdom has to show is so impressive in its way as to see the waters suddenly parted by his gleaming black bulk, which, in a moment, grows to leviathan proportions before your eyes.

Would you barter the lasting companionship of all this magnificent strength for one mess of commercial pottage, especially when it is the fitting counterpart to the soaring beauty of the birds? Go out before dawn on any reef where fish are plentiful, and you'll feel the whole air astir with dim white wings. Look up above the Bird Rocks in clear weather, and you'll see the myriads of gannets, each the size of an eagle, actually greying the sky with their white bodies and black-tipped wings. Or watch the gulls wherever they congregatethe big Blackbacks, with their stentorian Ha! hah!' the Glaucus, the vociferous herring gulls, and the little Kittiwakes, calling out their name persistently, 'keeta-wake, keet-a-wake.' Their voices are not musical-no seabirds' voices are though they sound very appealing notes to anyone who loves the sea. But all the winged

beauty that poets and painters have ever dreamt of is in their flight. Lateen sails on Mediterranean blue are the most beautiful of sea forms made by man. But what is the finest felucca compared with a seagull alighting on the water with its wings a-peak? And what are seagulls on the water to those circling overhead, when you can lie on the top of an island crag looking up at them, and they are the only things afloat between you and the infinite deep of Heaven?

Nearer down in my sanctuary there would be plenty of terns or sea-swallows, with their keen bills poised like a lance in rest. They are perpetually on the alert, these light cavalry of the seagull army; and very smart they look, with their black caps, pearl-grey jackets and white bodies, set off by red bills and feet. They become lancer and lance in one, when they suddenly fold their sweeping wings close in to their bodies and make their darting dive into the water, which spurts up in a jet and falls back with a 'plop' as they pierce it. Just skimming the surface are the noisy, sooty, gluttonous, quarrelsome shearwaters, or 'haglets,' who have got so much into the habit of making three flaps, to clear the crest of a wave, and then a glide, to cross the trough, that they keep up this sort of a hop-skip-and-jump even when the sea is as smooth as a mill-pond. I would throw them a bucketful of chopped liver and watch the fun, camera in hand. On the surface of the water are long lines of ducks. My sanctuary would be full of them. From a canoe I have seen them in the distance stretching out for a mile, like a long, low reef. From the top of a big cliff I have seen them look like an immense strip of carpet, undulated by a draft of air, as they rose and fell on the waves. And when they took flight in their thousands, their pattering feet and the drumming whirr of their wings were like hail on the grass and thunder beyond the hills.

As you paddle alongside a crannied cliff, you wonder where all the kittens come from, for the rocks are fairly sibilant with their mewings. These are the young Black Guillemots, or sea-pigeons, whose busy parents are flying about, showing a winking flash of white on their shoulders and carrying their bright carmine feet like a stern light. I would choose cliffs for a sea-pigeon loft, a