VANISHING SPECIES 



337 



same State, the mule deer is said also to be on the verge of 

 extinction. Any animal valuable for flesh, fur, or feathers 

 is destined to be one of the vanishing species unless pro- 

 tected by law from its great enemy, man. The beaver, 

 celebrated for its architectural 

 skill and intelligence, has fled 

 from most of its former haunts in 

 the Eastern and Middle States, 

 and now exists only in small 

 numbers from the Rio Grande 

 in Texas northward to the limit 

 of trees, and southeastward 

 through Canada to New' Eng- 

 land. The fur-bearing Alaska 

 sea lion, wrongly called seal, 

 which for many years furnished 

 more than a million dollars' 

 worth of sealskin annually, will 

 within another decade become 

 so few as to be of little com- 

 mercial value unless the killing of mothers at sea is 

 stopped. In 1873 a special agent of the government esti- 

 mated the number of seals living on the Prib'ilof Islands 

 to be over three millions. In 1890 the number was con- 

 sidered to be less than one million, and in 1903 a careful 

 investigation showed that only about two hundred thou- 

 sand were yet living. 



Not only mammals, but likewise birds and fish, are van- 

 ishing before the terrific slaughter of man. The woodcock, 

 wild turkey, prairie chicken, and wild pigeon abounded in 

 many regions a quarter of a century ago. To-day the 



FIG. 330. The buffalo (bison). 

 Photographed in the Philadel- 

 phia Zoological Gardens. 



