The appeal prefixed to the original _Address_ in 1911 announced the
issue of the present supplement in 1912, and asked experts and other
leaders of public opinion to set the subject on firm foundations by
contributing advice and criticism.
The response was most gratifying. The twelve hundred review copies
sent out to the Canadian press, and the hundreds more sent out to
general and specialist periodicals in every part of the
English-speaking world, all met with a sympathetic welcome, and were
often given long and careful notices. Many scientific journals, like
the _Bulletin of the Zoological Society of America_, sporting
magazines, like the Canadian _Rod and Gun_, and zoophil organs, like
the English _Animals' Guardian_, examined the _Address_ thoroughly
from their respective standpoints. The _Empire Review_ has already
reprinted it _verbatim_ in London, and an association of outing men
are now preparing to do the same in New York.
But though the press has been of the greatest service in the matter of
publicity the principal additions to a knowledge of the question have
come from individuals. Naturalists, sportsmen and leaders in public
life have all helped both by advice and encouragement. Quotations from
a number of letters are published at the end of this supplement. The
most remarkable characteristic of all this private correspondence and
public notice, as well as the spoken opinions of many experts, is
their perfect agreement on the cardinal point that we are wantonly
living like spendthrifts on the capital of our wild life, and that the
general argument of the _Address_ is, therefore, incontrovertibly
true.
The gist of some of the most valuable advice is, that while the
_Address_ is true so far as it goes, its application ought to be
extended to completion by including the leasehold system, side by side
with the establishment of sanctuaries and the improvement and
enforcement of laws.
Such an extension takes me beyond my original limits. Yet, both for
the sake of completeness and because this system is a most valuable
means toward the end desired by all conservers of wild life, I
willingly insert leaseholds as the connecting link between laws and
sanctuaries.
But before trying to give a few working suggestions on laws,
leaseholds and sanctuaries, and, more particularly still, before
giving any quotations from letters, I feel bound to point out again,
as I did in the _Address_ itself, that my own personality is really of
no special consequence, either in giving the suggestions or receiving
the letters. I have freely picked the brains of other men and simply
put together the scattered parts of what ought to be a consistent
whole.