and an opportunity for exercise. The small roadside cages used for foxes, 

 bears and other animals displayed for advertising purposes are pitifully in' 

 adequate and should be condemned. 



All those interested in wild animals should consider it their duty to do 

 all that they can to protect and conserve them. Unfortunately most of the 

 zoological training given in our schools and colleges has been directed almost 

 entirely along the lines of preparation for medical work and very little towards 

 appreciation of living animals. Lack of time and equipment has generally 

 prevented field trips and the maintenance of living animals other than experi' 

 mental rats and guinea-pigs. Our libraries contain many books describing 

 the details of dissection and minute anatomy, but few concerning the life 

 histories and habits of our wild animals. After all, it is life itself in which 

 we are primarily interested. Too often we fi-nd ourselves in the position of 

 the child who has taken his mechanical toy apart to see what makes it work. 

 We can describe in great detail the structure of the song bird, its trachea, 

 its syrinx or voice box and all its internal structure, but we are as far from 

 explaining its song as ever. This is not a condemnation of the work done, 

 but rather a call to additional study before it is too late and many of these 

 animals have gone from the earth forever. It is urged that field excursions 

 be regarded more as observation trips than as collecting trips, that the live 

 animal be considered more valuable than its preserved skin or carcass, 

 and that any unusual animal should not be feared because it is unknown 

 or shot as a trophy because of its rarity, but regarded as presenting an op' 

 portunity to study another manifestation of that peculiar something we 

 call life. 



The hunter and trapper have received more than their share of blame 

 for the decrease in number and species of our wild animals. By far the 

 greatest factor in the decline has been the destruction of breeding grounds. 

 All over the country lakes and marshes have been drained, rivers dammed 

 and polluted, streams straightened, forests and groves destroyed, and land 

 useless for agriculture used for grazing until all vegetation is destroyed. 

 Coming down to details within the control of the individual, thickets have 

 been reduced to hedges, hedges replaced by wire fences, hollow tree limbs so 

 sought by birds, squirrels, bats and other animals as homes or refuges filled 

 with cement or removed, tangles of sprouts around the bases of lilac and 

 syringa bushes carefully trimmed, snakes "killed on sight "because we don't 

 like them", frogs and toads and their eggs promptly removed from ponds in 

 garden and park. 



Another less powerful but never-the-less important factor in reducing 

 our wild life has been the over-protection of a few animals and the ill-advised 

 introduction of foreign forms. Even in this day of enlightenment many people 

 still seem to retain the ancient Egyptian reverence for the cat, allowing it 



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