PRIMEVAL MAN 255 



now everywhere died out. In most regions, 

 and in the earher stages, man had httle or 

 nothing to do with its destruction. But during 

 the last few thousand years he has been the 

 chief factor in the extermination of the great 

 creatures wherever he has estabhshed an in- 

 dustrial or agricultural civilization or semi- 

 civilization. The big cat he has warred against 

 in self-defense. The elephant in India has been 

 kept tame or half tame. The Old World horse 

 has been tamed and transplanted to every por- 

 tion of the temperate zones, and to the dry or 

 treeless portions of the torrid zone. 



Around the Mediterranean, the cradle of the 

 ancient culture of our race, we have historic 

 record of the process. Over three thousand 

 years ago the Egyptian and Mesopotamian 

 kings hunted the elephant in Syria. A thou- 

 sand years later the elephant was a beast of 

 war in the armies of the Greeks, the Carthagin- 

 ians, and the Romans. Twenty -five hundred 

 years ago the lion was a dreaded beast of ravin 

 in the Balkan Peninsula and Palestine, as he 

 was a hundred years ago in North Africa; now 

 he is to be found south of the Atlas, or, nearing 

 extinction, east of the Euphrates. Seemingly 

 the horse was tamed long after the more homely 

 beasts, the cattle, swine, goats, and sheep. He 



