14 ANIMALS OF THE PRIMITIVE FOREST. 



gregate near his habitations. They are attracted by the 

 increased amount of all their means of subsistence that fol- 

 lows the cultivation of the land. The granivorous birds, 

 no less than the insect-feeders, are benefited by the exten- 

 sion of agriculture. Even if no cereal grains were raised, 

 the cultivated fields would supply them, in the product of 

 weeds 'alone, more sustenance than a hundred times the 

 same area in forest. Before there were any settlements 

 of white men in this country, birds and small quadrupeds 

 must have congregated chiefly about the wooded borders 

 of prairies, on the banks of rivers, in fens and cranberry 

 meadows, and around the villages of the red man. Their 

 numbers over the whole continent were probably much 

 smaller than at the present time, notwithstanding the 

 merciless destruction of them by gunners and trappers. 



There are but few tribes of animals that may be sup- 

 posed to thrive only in the wild forest ; and even these, 

 if unmolested by man, would always find a better sub- 

 sistence in a half-cultivated country abounding in woods 

 of sufficient extent to afford them shelter and a nursery 

 for their young, than in a continuous wilderness. Beasts 

 of prey, however, are destroyed by man in the vicinity of 

 all his settlements, to protect himself and his property 

 from their attacks, and game-birds and animals of the 

 chase are recklessly hunted both for profit and amuse- 

 ment. In Europe the clearing of the original forest was 

 so. gradual that the wild animals multiplied more rapidly 

 with the progress of agriculture. Civilization advanced 

 so slowly, and the arts made such tardy and gradual pro- 

 gress, that all species enjoyed considerable immunity 

 from man. The game-birds and animals of the chase 

 were not only preserved in forests attached to princely 

 estates, but they were also protected by game-laws at 

 a time when such laws were less needful because so few 

 of the peasantry were accustomed to the use of the gun. 



