2 72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE NARROAVING CIECLE OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 



By THOS. D. EASON 



STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL, CLAREMORE, OKLA. 



IN the older regions of the country the scarcity of animals and birds 

 has been noticed and studied for a long time, but many persons 

 are unaware of the rapid decrease in bird and animal life in recent 

 years. From the timbered regions of the far west, that region which 

 was thought to contain inexhaustible supplies of game of all descrip- 

 tion, we are constantly hearing such queries as ; " What has become of 

 our Rocky Mountain goats and sheep, which were once so conspicuous 

 on the cliffs of the Rockies ? Where are the elk and other deer ? " In 

 Maine the same questions are being asked concerning the moose and 

 caribou ; while the whole country is wondering why the birds are disap- 

 pearing so rapidly. 



The question has aroused the government, as well as the naturalists, 

 with the result that numerous investigations and reports have been 

 made. Any one who has taken the trouble to do a little investigating 

 along this line, if he has done no more than to investigate local condi- 

 tions, has had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that many of 

 our wild animals and birds are decreasing in numbers at an astonish- 

 ingly great rate and that several forms have been practically wiped out 

 of existence. 



I do not think that any one section of the country can be accused 

 of more wanton killing than another, for the people of all sections are 

 guilty of carelessness in the matter of game preservation. Every one is 

 familiar with the fact that millions of bison were killed on the plains of 

 the West, but few are cognizant of the fact that the inhabitants of the 

 Southeast had a hand in dealing, what came very near being the death 

 blow to the buffalo tribe. From Carolina on the east to the foothills of 

 the Rockies, the bison was wont to roam; very probably then, the in- 

 habitants of the southeastern country had a hand in the slaughtering. 

 Their herds were estimated to have contained from one hundred and 

 fifty million to four hundred and fifty million. A government census, 

 taken with as much care as was possible, showed that in 1850 the herds 

 numbered about forty million head. By 1883 about the only traces of 

 wild buffaloes in this country were the vast acres of prairies strewn with 

 bones and horn. If the government had employed men to exterminate 

 the bison, they could not have gone at it more thoroughly than the 

 buffalo hunters and Indians did. From 1850 to 1883, a period of 



