CHAPTER XVI 

 AMERICAN MAMMAL PROBLEMS 



Each form of animal or plant .should be looked upon as an experiment in 

 making a machine which shall best fit its environment and most effectively 

 do the work required of it. The fit live ; the unfit are relegated to the bio- 

 logical scrap heap, that is, become extinct. Care of offspring and protection 

 from the elements are prime factors in fitness to survive. Mammals excel in 

 both of these functions and characters, and while the feather is as light and 

 perhaps more beautiful, hair is tougher and stands harder wear, and milk 

 carried by the mother is a safer provision for the young than food packed 

 in the shell of an egg. Above all, the intelligence which fashions adaptable 

 protection from the elements, clothes and houses, caps the climax of purely 

 biological fitness. 



Mammals. This group, to which man himself belongs, 

 ranks highest in the scale of animal life. Its various forms 

 dominate easily sea and land and yield only to birds domin- 

 ion of the air. Every one knows a bird at sight, but, unlike 

 this compact group, mammals differ extremely in structure 

 from fishlike porpoises and whales to birdlike bats. In gen- 

 eral, hair is as characteristic of mammals as feathers of birds ; 

 and aside from a few freak forms, like the Australian duck- 

 bill ( Ornithorynchus paradoxus, " bird-nosed paradox "), which 

 lays eggs and incubates them like a bird, mammals agree in 

 nourishing the young with milk. 



Among the more important problems relating to American 

 mammals are the following: 



1. Extermination of predacious forms as the continent has 

 been opened up to settlement panthers, bears, lynxes and 

 wild cats, wolverines, wolves, minks, skunks, and weasels. 



2. Utilization of native wild animals bison, elk, moose, 

 deer, antelope, mountain sheep and goats, hares and rabbits. 



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