50 ANIMAL LIFE AND SOCIAL GROWTH 



mals of the trees, and bats, forest birds such as 

 woodpeckers, owls and hawks, and insects rep- 

 resented the flying arboreal animals. Life along 

 the forest margins was richer than in the depths; 

 rabbits, groundhogs, skunks, chipmunks, mice 

 and raccoons were particularly abundant near 

 the natural breaks in the forest. 



With the coming of the white man in numbers, 

 the fluctuating balance of life which had developed 

 under the age-long hunting of the Indians was 

 gradually broken. Some of the inter-relations 

 that had existed are revealed by the fact that as 

 the pioneer white settlers in Illinois killed off the 

 wolves and wild-cats, the number of deer and of 

 several smaller mammals showed a decided in- 

 crease. The observed increase in the number of 

 deer may have been a part of one of the unex- 

 plained cycles in abundance which will be dis- 

 cussed more fully in Chapter VII; the increases 

 in other animals cannot have been entirely due to 

 such cycles. 



Later as the country became more closely 

 settled, the deer and other mammals were mostly 

 crowded out. Many were killed by hunters; 

 more were never born on account of the clearing 

 of the breeding places. At present only a small 

 remnant of this formerly abundant mammalian 

 community exists, but of this remnant the tiny 



