792 TEXTBOOK OF ZOOLOGY 



posing an open season on does or "antlerless" deer in such cases 

 than for opposmg the marketing of breeding cows on an over- 

 stocked livestock range. 



The Coming of Civilization and a Declaration of Indefensibles 



The story of the development of America is full of meaning as it 

 bears on our natural resources. Man's inventive genius, coupled with 

 his occupation of the land, has ''modified the earth," to use Marsh's 

 expressive statement, and has helped, in all too many instances, to 

 make his surroundings less favorable for his own future. 



Below are reviewed some of the things for which civilized man is 

 responsible. Here is a sort of Declaration of Indefensibles: 



Man has cut and burned the trees of the forest, in many instances 

 leaving the affected area so poor that it cannot recover without costly 

 plantings. 



He has precipitately drained the marshes for his agriculture or for 

 the alleged protection of his health, sometimes wisely, often waste- 

 fully. Not seldom have drainage enterprises turned out to be of little 

 value for agriculture or for mosquito control, but they nearly always 

 eliminate much valuable wildlife (waterfowl, fishes, fur animals, and 

 a host of other creatures). 



With his roads man has penetrated nearly every remaining fastness. 

 The wild game has few remaining refuges. Except for a few preserves, 

 the man with the gun can ride nearly anywhere and enjoy a "success- 

 ful" hunt mth a minimum of physical exertion or mental stimulus. 



Man has polluted the streams and lakes of America, and even the 

 waters of the sea itself. Salt water from oil wells, chemical wastes 

 from industry, and raw sewage from towns and great cities are poured 

 into our great drainage ways. Formerly clear and sparkling, with 

 an abundance of fish, what are they now 1 All too often merely nause- 

 ating reminders of what once was a splendid past. 



Man has plowed much land that should have been kept for livestock 

 and wild game. He has grazed a great deal more land that should 

 have been reserved for wildlife. He has planted his field crops in such 

 a manner that erosion of the soil, mother resource of all the rest, is 

 accelerated often to the point of destruction. The results of all this 

 land mismanagement are becoming annually more obvious, through 

 the increase in number and volume of floods, the augmented turbidity 



