general Zoological changes. 15 



almost all those large tracts, where savage hunters roam in 

 uncontrolled liberty, and kill animals only for their home con- 

 sumption, well stocked with all the indigenous species of ani- 

 mals. Man, in this stage, is, in fact, little more, as to the point 

 in question, than one of the natural elements of the animal 

 kingdom, which keep each other in equilibrium. 



As to the nomadic tribes, which wander with their herds or 

 flocks over boundless tracts, they likewise leave the surface, 

 which in itself is mostly of a comparatively little changeable 

 nature, pretty much in its ancient condition. They have, 

 however, substituted for the game, their tame animals, as a 

 regular article of food ; and if they indulge in hunting, it will 

 be done, for the greater part, with a view of protecting their 

 cattle from the inroads of the larger animals of prey. Still, 

 they cannot make any great or lasting impression on the wild 

 animals of a given district, particularly as most of the species 

 lead the same vagrant life there, as man himself, and thus the 

 first great step towards civilization, if left uncomplicated, does 

 not affect the animal kingdom in a very striking degree. 



As soon, however, as man has made the second great step 

 towards his own improvement, by engaging in agricultural 

 pursuits, and becoming a fixed tenant of the ground, the rela- 

 tions of the lower animals to man are essentially changed, and 

 they will be so the more thoroughly, as the developement of 

 man in that stage becomes more perfect. Not only does the 

 indirect influence of man, directly begin to work visible and 

 lasting effects, but it is evident that the large herbivorous spe- 

 cies ought to be exterminated, or greatly reduced in numbers, 

 to prevent their depredations on the crops ; and that the ex- 

 istence of the fierce carnivorous animals is incompatible with 

 the security of the persons and live stock, in a cultivated dis- 

 trict. Against them, therefore, a most determined war will 

 be waged, on the very outset of agricultural pursuits ; but the 

 more regular mode of life of the settler will gradually involve 

 the condition, or even the existence, of all the other animals, 

 in the proportion as they are important to man, in every form 

 of this stage of social developement. 



If we take a hasty view of the influence which the different 

 and principal forms of the social state of agricultural nations 

 have exercised, or do still exercise, on the animal kingdom, 

 we shall first find the hierarchical form of government to have 

 effected a most decided and curious aspect of zoology, in ma- 

 ny parts of the globe. The priests did not only set themselves 

 forth as the supreme authority, in regulating the duties of man 

 to God, or to man, but they took it also upon themselves to 

 establish fixed laws about the behaviour of man to the infe- 



