425 



I have illustrated this part of the subject we are considering by 

 reference to the mammals alone, but similar cases of species, gra- 

 dually getting more and more scarce, and ultimately becoming 

 extinct, might be brought forward in other classes of animals — in 

 birds and insects especially. 



And what of the future 1 The same changes will continue to 

 take place, slowly and silently, not perceptible to ourselves, nor 

 perhaps to those who immediately succeed us, though, after a 

 longer or shorter period, making their effects visible, and not ceas- 

 ing till every species of mammal of any size now living, and not 

 wanted by man for his own use, shall have passed away, and 

 been added to the remains of those myriads of dead already 

 entombed in the great graveyard beneath our feet. Man, indeed, 

 is the chief exterminator at the present day, so far as regards the 

 larger animals. Wherever he plants his foot he lets his power and 

 dominion over thein forthwith be felt. He reclaims those which 

 can be brought to share his home and do his work. He hunts and 

 catches those not easily domesticated, but still serviceable for food 

 or clothing ; while all others, dangerous from their size or ferocity, 

 or which interfere in any way with his property, he mercilessly 

 destroys.* 



We may gather the extent to which this destruction is carried 

 on from statements occasionally piiblished expressing it in actual 

 figui-es. In the "American Naturalist" for September, 1871, Mr. 

 W. J. Hays, after speaking of the diminishing numbers and the 

 contracted range at the present day of many wild animals in North 

 America, " reckons that not fewer than half-a-million bisons are 

 annually destroyed by the hand of man."t In like manner — 

 " Indian papers state that during only the first six months of 

 last year (1871) as many as 183 tigers and cubs, 393 panthers and 



* " The history of man . . . involves the condition of a great many 

 species of the lower animals, and on account of the strict dependence of all 

 the species on others, or on the rest of the natural productions which man 

 likewise modifies, we are, perhaps, warranted in concluding that there is no 

 species whose natural relations have not been materially affected by human 

 influence." — Weissenborn. See aninteresting article " On the influence of Man 

 in modifying the Zoological features of the Globe, &c.," in Mag. of Nat. Hist., 

 Ser. ii., vol. ii., pp. 13, 65, 122, 239. See also an article by Fleming on the 

 " Influence of Society on the Distribution of British Animals." Edinb. Phil. 

 Journ., vol. xi,, p. 287. t See "Nature," vol. iv., p. 399. 



