36 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



the wonder of American travelers, with the less known, but magnificent 

 jvory-bilkMl \voo(li)ecker, and the pretty Carolina parrakeet, have all 

 become, if not extinct, among the rarest of birds. 



Apart from the commercial value of its skins, the tax upon which 

 has paid for the cost of our vast Alaskan territory, the singular habits 

 and teeming millions of the northern fur seal have excited general in- 

 terest even among those who are not interested in natural history. In 

 1S49 these animals abounded from Lower California to the lonely 

 Alaskan Isles, and it has been supposed that the precautions taken by 

 the Government for their protection on the breeding-grounds of the 

 Pribilov Islands would preserve permanently the still considerable 

 remnant which existed after the purchase of Alaska and the destruction 

 of the southern rookeries. But it is becoming too evident that the 

 greed of the hunters and the devastation caused by the general adop- 

 tion of the method of pursuing them in the open sea, destroying indis- 

 criminately mothers and offspring, is going to bring these hopes to 

 naught. 



For most of these animals, therefore, it may be regarded as certain 

 that, unless some small remnant be i)reserved in a semi-domesticated 

 state, a few years will bring utter extinction. The Anu^rican of the 

 next generation, when questioned about the animals once characteristic 

 of his country, will then be forced to confess that with the exception of 

 a few insignificant creatures, ranking as vermin, this broad continent 

 possesses none of those species which once covered it, since the present 

 generation will have completed the destruction of them all. 



The Yellowstone Park is doing excellent work under the present 

 management, and too much can not be said in praise of the action 

 which has given it to the country. It is, however, also desirable and 

 necessary that, if these vanishing forms are to be preserved, there 

 should be vsome zoological preserve or garden nearer the Capital, where 

 representatives of all these races, not only of the land, but of the water 

 also, may be preserved under the care of those permanently interested 

 in their protection, in the charge, that is, of men who not only have 

 special professional knowledge of their habits and needs, but who may 

 be considered as having an unselfish interest in looking to their preser- 

 vation, and who may act as scientific advisers, whenever such advice 

 is deemed desirable by Congress or by the heads of Departments. 



Is it realized that nearly all the principal animals indigenous to the 

 United States are either substantially extinct or in danger of becom- 

 ing so and is it sufficiently realized that, once extinct, no expenditure 

 of treasure car. restore what can even today be preserved by prompt 

 action of a very simple and definite kind ? 



It is such consi/ierations as these that have induced me to ask the 

 earnest attention ot the Regents, of Congress, and of the country to the 

 immediate necessity for action. The trust is unquestionably for the ad- 

 vancement of science as well as for the instruction and recreation of 



