INTRODUCTION 27 



for even the great continents are now rapidly 

 being depopulated of their larger or most helpless 

 birds and beasts. The work of extermination may 

 in many cases be a longer one than it has proved 

 to be on many islands, but the final results are 

 just as inevitable. In the Polar regions the seal 

 and the whale (to quote but a couple of instances) 

 have been reduced almost to a state of extinction ; 

 in warmer lands the zebra and the giraife of 

 Africa, in fact all the big game of that continent, 

 is rapidly being exterminated; in America the 

 buffalo and other large animals are threatened 

 with a similar fate. Every year civilised man 

 (and to a great extent savage man follows his 

 example) is becoming more and more utilitarian, 

 and species after species is threatened as its 

 economic value becomes recognised. Millions of 

 birds must be killed annually for decorative 

 purposes ; crocodiles, alligators, lizards, and many 

 other wild creatures, formerly despised, have been 

 found to yield valuable products ; and if the 

 fashion or craze lasts, the species affected ultimately 

 verges on extinction. Wherever civilised man and 

 his animal satellites penetrate, the fauna suffers, 

 and the longer he remains the more disastrous 

 his influence becomes ; so that it requires no very 



