26 ANIMAL ECOLOGY 



the least disparagement of other lines of work, one 

 can but wonder if the naturalists of the future will 

 commend our foresight in studying with such great 

 diligence certain aspects of biology which might 

 be very well delayed, while ephemeral and vanishing 

 records are allowed to be obliterated without the 

 least concern. These changes are generally greatest 

 where civilized man is most dominant, and in pro- 

 gressive attenuations, zones, or strips, the degree of 

 change produced by him radiates. Ecology has 

 developed only at a late stage in civilization, after 

 much of the environment has undergone great 

 changes, so that in order to study the original condi- 

 tions, which are of such great historic and genetic 

 significance, he must make long journeys, or invade 

 the swamps or sterile uplands which man has 

 not yet been able to reduce to the average con- 

 ditions best suited to his needs. This state of 

 affairs is one which, at times, makes him thankful 

 that there are conditions which, for the present at 

 least, man cannot cultivate and utterly change and 

 mutilate. Some appear to think that an interest in 

 such original conditions is of no particular scientific 

 value, or is largely one of sentiment ; still others, that 

 such studies have no practical value. But if we 

 come to consider that the original primeval condi- 

 tions give us our best conception of the normal pro- 

 cesses of nature and are comparable to the normal 

 health of an organism, it puts the subject in another 

 light. A pathological condition is, of course, a 

 state in a natural process, as is also any disturbance 



