THE NATIONAL ZOO AT WASHINGTON," A STUDY OF ITS 

 ANIMALS IN RELATION TO THEIR NATURAL EM I 

 RONMENT. 



By Ernest Thompson Seton. 



At the beginning of this century the continent of North America 

 was one vast and teeming - game range. Not only were the buffalo in 

 millions across the Mississippi, but other large game was fully as 

 abundant, though less conspicuous. Herds of elk, numbering L0,000 

 or 15,000, were commonly seen along the Upper Missouri. The ante- 

 lope ranged the higher plains in herds of thousands: whitetail deer, 

 though less gregarious, were seen in bands of hundreds; while bighorn 

 sheep, though still less disposed to gather in large flocks, were rarely 

 out of sight in the lower parts of the eastern Rockies, and it was quite 

 usual to see several hundred blacktail in the course of a single clay's 

 travel. 



But a change set in when the pioneer Americans, with their horses. 

 their deadly rifles, their energy, and their taste for murder, began to 

 invade the newly found West. 



The settlers increased in numbers, and the rifles became more deadly 

 each year; but the animals did not improve in speed, cunning, or 

 fecundity in an equal ratio, and so were defeated in the struggle for 

 life, and started on the down grade toward extinction. 



Aside from sentimental or aesthetic reasons, which I. shall not here 

 discuss, the extinction of a large or highly organized animal is a serious 

 matter. 



1. It is always dangerous to disturb the balance of nature by remov- 

 ing a poise. Some of the worst plagues have arisen in this way. 



2. We do not know, without much and careful experiment, how 

 vast a service that animal might have done to mankind as a domestic 

 species. 



The force of this will be more apparent if we recollect how much 

 the few well-known domestic species have done for the advancement of 



a Reprinted, by permission of the author and of The Century Company, from The 

 Century Magazine, vol. lix, March, L900; vol. Ix, May. 1900. Copyrighted, 1900. 



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