12 T. A. Coward — Presidential Address 



introduction of creatures, for the most part classed as pests. 

 An entirely dififerent method of ^roupino- or analysis of results 

 would be the dividino- of those from which Man derives 

 benefit, from those which are detrimental to his welfare. 

 Deliberately or unintentionally man has in his dealings with 

 animals derived profit and loss, and he has by no means 

 invariably succeeded in attaining the ends that he desired, or 

 wiiich, at first blush, seemed likely to result. Animals, con- 

 sciously or unconsciously, treat Man as a competing species, 

 and however warmly a Krapotkin may advocate mutual aid, 

 or a Drummond urge the harmony of Nature, the painful fact 

 remains, Man and the primitive protozoon alike strives and 

 has to strive to exist at all. 



So long as the disturbance of Nature is confined to culti- 

 vation of land or domestication of useful animals, necessities 

 for man's existence, this disturbance is not only justifiable 

 but a duty. It may mean, it is certain to mean, destruction 

 of many existing forms as well as individuals, but the loss 

 cannot be helped; it is true, however, that in few^ cases has 

 the cultivation for food or the destruction of animals for the 

 same reason been the cause of extinction ; it is when commer- 

 cialism demands wholesale and usually wasteful methods that 

 this undesirable end is evident. The African native, who in 

 his pitfalls slew wholesale, for the sake of obtaining food, did 

 less havoc than the trading sportsman who found ivory and 

 other products meant wealth — in other words supplied more 

 than was necessary for his welfare but not for his desired 

 wealth. The Red Indian was not gifted with foresight in his 

 attacks upon the bison, but he failed to destroy it until 

 commercial Western civilisation took a hand ; then the vast 

 herds soon ceased to exist. Mr. H. J. Massingham says that 

 *' in many ways, our attitude to animals is still very barbarous 

 and very imperfectly consistent. But it must be remembered 

 that these barbarisms are partly vestigiary relics of an 

 unenlightened past and partly the consequences of the detest- 

 able predatory spirit directly encouraged by commercialism."* 

 Not only do I endorse this, but I would add my belief that the 

 ancient barbaric attitude, cruel, wasteful, blind though it was, 

 was more in harmony with Nature than the greedy, commer- 

 cial, Devil-take-the-hindmost spirit of the so-called intelligent 

 man of the present day who, for his own gain, exploits the 

 weaker brain power of less highly developed creatures. 

 Granted, however, that a certain amount of disturbance is 



•Massingham, *' Some Birds of the Country Side, 1921." 



