612 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



species. The direct harm done is best seen where the smaller species, 

 such as goats, dogs, cats, and hogs have been introduced into small 

 islands destitute of carnivorous mammals, and where most of the birds 

 are tame and many species ground dwellers. One of the most inter- 

 esting birds uow being rapidly destroyed by imported animals is the 

 New Zealand kiwi, which is preyed upon by dogs, and especially by 

 cats, whose small size enables them to pursue the kiwi through the 

 dense bush of its favorite haunts, while the nocturnal habits of both 

 briug them out in search of food at the same time. Very rarely an an- 

 imal seems to learn wisdom by experience and escape destruction 

 by change of habit, but such instances are rare, although among them 

 is the case of the Samoan tooth-billed pigeon {Diduncidus striyiros- 

 tris) which formerly bred on or near the ground, and was so greatly 

 reduced in numbers by cats as to be threatened with extermination. 

 Eventually the bird took to nesting and roosting in trees and has since 

 been gradually on the increase. 



Among the larger and more striking animals whose threatened ex- 

 tinction is largely due to the rifle of the sportsman, is the true ze'>ra, 

 now confined to a small area, in South Africa : and the giraffe is rapidly 

 disappearing from the same cause. The decrease of our own large 

 game is well kuowu; our only parrot, the Carolina parrakeet, will 

 probably be extirpated in Florida by visitors, and the eastern pinnated 

 grouse is restricted to the island of Nantucket, although long ago laws 

 were framed for the protection of the "Heathen," as the compositor 

 caused the bill to read. The clearing and cultivation of laud operates 

 directly and indirectly in a variety of ways, and is by no means an 

 unmitigated evil to the wild animals affected by it, being fatal to 

 some and directly beneficial to others. The larger, more dangerous, 

 or more gregarious quadrupeds are naturally the first to disappear, but 

 smaller animals on the contrary, and especially birds, profit by the de- 

 struction of their natural enemies and the food furnished by cultivated 

 fields aud become more numerous. 



Thus in western Kansas the jack-rabbits are on the increase owing 

 to the fact that the bounty on coyotes is two dollars while the price of 

 a rabbit's scalp is only five cents, a difference of value that has resulted 

 in the rapid decrease of the rabbits' natural check, the coyote. West- 

 ern Kansas, too, affords another, and most excellent illustration of the 

 direct influence of population upon the decrease or increase of the 

 larger animals. Up to 1884 the region just mentioned was very 

 sparsely settled, antelope were comparatively abundant and mule deer 

 were frequently to be seen. During 1885 and 1886, under the mistaken 

 impression that western Kansas was suitable for farming purposes, 

 there came a tide of immigration from the east, and before the rising 

 wave of increasing population the mule deer disappeared entirely and 

 the antelope became extremely scarce. The country, so far as farming 

 was concerned, having been tried and found wanting, an ebb tide of eini 



