212 ~=REY. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION 
tion to adapt themselves to the particular situations in 
which they are placed. Momentous changes in the climate 
of a region, together with important modifications of the 
earth’s surface dependent upon certain geological pheno- 
mena, have, even in Kainozoic ages, materially affected 
animal life; but the civilizing influence of the human race 
promises results in comparison with which those achieved 
by the forces of nature sink into insignificance. Man, 
though he claims the right of disposing of the lower animals 
for any object which may increase his own happiness, acknow- 
ledges no obligation to suffer the slightest inconvenience for 
their sake. His very existence depends upon the preserva- 
tion of certain species of mammals; but the food which 
nourishes these, in common with himself, is of equal import- 
ance to an incomparably greater number of species in whose 
economy he has no friendly interest. 
With uncivilized man the wild beast may long dispute 
possession of the desert; for the wants of the savage are 
few, and the weapons at his disposal barely sufficient to 
enable him to maintain his precarious proletariat; but 
before the irrepressible advance of civilized society, the 
strongest and fiercest of the Carnivora retire slowly and 
sullenly to less accessible solitudes. In physical strength 
and agility the human being is far inferior to the vast 
majority of the larger mammals, and, if unarmed and alone, 
would be quite at their mercy—“the steer of the meadow 
tosses him like a waste rag.” Yet the number of species 
from whose attacks his life is in danger is surprisingly 
small. In India, where there is a greater variety of carni- 
vorous animals than in any other region, and where many 
hundreds of persons are said to be killed annually by them, 
according to the unquestionable testimony of Sir Joseph 
Fayrer, the fatalities may, almost without exception, be laid 
to the charge of two species of Felide, the Tiger and Leopard. 
The proportion, appalling as it may appear, is in reality 
incredibly small, only about five in a million. 
In India, however, as in other parts of the world into 
which civilization has penetrated, the number of wild 
animals is rapidly diminishing. The impossibility of obtain- 
ing even an approximate census of such a population is, of 
