25 JANUARY 1930, Page 13

* * * * WILD LIFE.

In view of the numerous reports we have had recently of the destruction and, in many instances, the extinction of wild life in the United States, the returns from the latest game census of the national forests are particularly pleasing. These show that all big game animals in the national forests, except mountain goats, moose, and caribou, are steadily increasing in number as a consequence of the protection afforded in recent years by State and Federal game laws. Deer showed a gain of about 47,000 in twelve months, the total number in the forests now being 748,000. Elks, antelopes, bears, mountain sheep, and, in some places, beavers also multiplied. There are at present some twenty million acres of national forests, with more than a hundred game refuges under the protection of State and Federal authorities. In addition to protecting game in the refuges from all shooting, the Forest Services are successfully restocking areas in which game had been exterminated before the present protective laws were passed. Deer have been transferred with success from the overpopulated Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina to the mountains of Virginia, for example, while mountain sheep brought from Canada are flourishing in Colorado and Oklahoma.

Ivy LEE. New York, Wednesday, Januanj 22nd.