8 MAN AND ANIMALS 



III. Man's Relation to Nature 



Mr. Roosevelt's statement is quite different from much of the poetry 

 about nature, still it is a true picture. We live in a man-made nature 

 from which the conspicuous animals and their deadly struggles have 

 been eliminated (4, 5). Of the admirers of the beauties of nature I 

 fancy that many, perhaps the majority, think of it as a series of lawn- 

 like pastures, well-trimmed hedges, such as finds its ideal expression in 

 some of the older countries like England. 



The trees, round, woolly, ready to be clipped; 

 And if you seek for any wilderness 

 You find, at best, a park, a Nature tamed 

 And grown domestic like a barnyard fowl. 



— E. B. Browning, "Aurora Leigh." 



The close observer of nature, even in such man-made conditions as in 

 Bedfordshire or in the Chicago parks, sees all the struggle which Mr. 

 Roosevelt has depicted for the birds and mammals of primeval conditions. 

 To kill is nature's first law. 



1. man's conduct toward animals 

 There is much sentimental nonsense about nature, about animals 

 and cruelty to animals, as well as much actual cruelty and wanton 

 destruction of useful animals. With some people birds obscure all else 

 in the animal world. The destruction of squirrels, which are equally if 

 not more interesting than birds, is sometimes advocated because of their 

 alleged destruction of birds' eggs. The friend of the squirrel would 

 plead equally hard for the destruction of certain hawks and owls as 

 enemies of the squirrel. Certainly all lovers of the insect world might 

 advocate the destruction of birds to protect their particular zoological 

 pets. 



That birds save the harvests of every season is believed by many. 

 The student of mammals is equally sure that certain mammals are the 

 balance wheel, while the herpetologist is convinced of the importance of 

 snakes, and the entomologist's economic world turns about predatory and 

 parasitic insects and spiders. The fact is that each view, even thus 

 extremely stated, contains its elements of truth. The whole truth is 

 hardly knowable. Each animal is dependent upon many others. The 

 dependences are so numerous that we find it necessary to isolate par- 

 ticular animals and construct them into a society of real but limited 

 relations for purposes of discussion (see p. 170). Still there are a few 

 things that we can be reasonably sure of. The first is that we cannot 



