The American Museum Journal 



Vol. XII APRIL, 1912 No. 4 



PRESERVATION OF THE WORLD'S ANIMAL LIFE 



Bi/ Ilciirii Fdirfii'hl OsJioni 



AS a paheontolojiist I ha\'e a c()nvinciii<;' smtiiiicnt toward conserva- 

 tion. In every student of the history of Hfe, from its beginnings- 

 until to-(hiy, there is born a sentiment for conservation. It 

 springs from a long and intimate even though imaginary ac(iuaintance 

 with the world's animal life during vast periods of time. P^very hunter 

 of fossils puts himself backward in time and lives in imagination with his 

 plants and animals. How could one trace the l)ir(ls or the mammals through 

 their arduous ascent from reptiles, through the vicissitudes of geographical 

 and geological changes, without acquiring a peculiar admiration and sym- 

 pathy for them? Thus through following its structural evolution from 

 fragments preserved in the rocks, each creature gains historical and archi- 

 tectural as well as sesthetic value. Each becomes a living monument of 

 adaptation and of beauty, which connects the past with the present. 



All lovers of architecture regarfl the destruction of the Parthenon of 

 Athens by Turkish cannon in the year IGST as an act of barl)arism. Yet 

 it would be possil)le for modern arclijieologists and architects to restore this 

 temple of Greece to a large measure of its former beauty and grandeur. 

 It is far beyond the power of any men however, of all the naturalists of the 

 world, to restore a single forest, a tree or flower, a bird or mammal, even 

 a single vanished individual, let alone a vanished race: once lost, the loss 

 is irreparable. Only nine years were required to build the Parthenon; 

 it has taken millions of years to produce anj' single offspring of Xature. 

 When an ax or a bullet penetrates the delicate living tissue, replete with 

 this long history of contact with sunshine, oxjgen, water and soil, a temple 

 is torn to pieces. 



Although done in the name of civilization, we may hold it an act of 

 barbarism when we destroy a forest of spruce and grind it up into wood 

 pulp to pass beneath the press of the "yellow journal." The progress of 

 conservation marks the advance of a true, as distinguished from a false 

 <'ivilization. The conservation sentiment, feeble in its inception a few 

 decades, ago, becomes daily moir powerful, owing in part to the general 

 altruistic spirit of the times, in part to the direct efforts of associations 

 like the Audubon Society, and to the writings of nature poets, like John 

 Muir and John Burroughs, as well as of field naturalists, like Frank M. 

 Chapman of our own Museum. Substitution of the camera for the shot- 

 gun is exerting its influence: the work of Kearton, of Shiras, of Schilling, 

 Dugmore and Rainey, has spread a new knowledge of living animals. 



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