72 THE MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



GAME ANIMALS. 



C. H. CHAPMAN. 



There is an inborn natural passion in the human breast for huntiitg. 

 Undoubtedly an inheritance from our ancestrj^, who, with a girdle and 

 animal skin as the only articles of clothing, procured their living by the 

 chase. To every noble mind the solitude of the deep forest, the running 

 brook and a closer communion with nature inspires good and beautiful 

 thoughts, good acts and deeds, and leads on to higher ideals of life. 



"Read sermons in the stones 

 Books in running brooks, 

 And good in everytliing." 



The inspiration drawn from Nature's great and undisturbed works 

 where the animal has his home circle is best portrayed by the lines of 

 the poet : 



"I walk down the valley of silence, 

 Down the dim, voiceless valley — alone; 

 And I hear not the fall of a footstep 

 Around me, save God's and my own, 

 And the hush of my heart is as holy 

 As hovers whence angels have flown. 



In the hush of the valley of silence 



I dream all the songs that I sing; 

 And the mu.^ic floats down the dim valley 



Till each finds a word for a wing 

 That to men, like the dove of the deluge, 



The message of peace they may bring. 



And I have seen thoughts in the valley — 



Ah me! how my spirit was stirred! 

 And they wore holy veils on their faces. 



Their footsteps can scarecly be heard; 

 They pass through the valley like virgins, 



Too pure for the touch of a word." 



The two peninsulas of Michigan, with a coast line of over two thousand 

 miles, much greater than any other state in the Union, have been, during 

 and since the prehistoric age, the natural home of a great variety of ani- 

 mals. Before the arrival of the white man, the most destructive to all 

 animal kind. Nature provided an abundance of wild life. Clearing the 

 forests and subduing the lands has been the cause of a steady encroach- 

 ment upon the haunts of the once very plentiful game animals of Michi- 

 gan. In many of the southern counties there yet remains some of the 

 smaller game, not entirely exterminated by the removal of the forest 

 growth and draining of the swamps and marshes. The zone for large 

 game in Michigan has moved to the north just in proportion to the ad- 

 vance of man upon the great tracts of timbered lands and the bringing 

 up of the rear guard, the agriculturalist. The upper portion of the 



