108 ANIMALS OP NORTH AMERICA. 



great pine forests of Canada, the black bear and the puma, 

 the lynx and the wolf hold in check the smaller animals which 

 otherwise would overrun the land, whilst they in their turn 

 by feeding on the herbage in its luxuriance, maintain the 

 balance of vegetation, and by their oft forgotten hoards of 

 winter provender, provide a store of nut and fruit bearing 

 trees, to be in their turn the providers for some future 

 race of rodents. Remaining still around the haunts of men 

 are the smaller class always associated with him ; and the 

 dread of him acquired at his first approach, becomes to them 

 instinctive and hereditary. 



In conclusion, man's necessities and pleasures, as they have 

 been in the eastern hemisphere, will so be here, the cause of 

 great changes : the inaccessible cliffs of the Indian territory 

 will afford a refuge for the goat and the cimaron, but the 

 time is fast approaching when the buffalo, the puma, the 

 beaver, &c., will be known only by ancient records. Man 

 himself, the lord of creation, though he extirpates the noble 

 creatures of the earth, will ever be the slave of the canker- 

 worm and the fly till the time come for the final "restoration 

 of all things," and in the words of the poet, " this mortal 

 shall put on immortality." 



