1914] Bryant: Economic Status of the Western Meadowlark 383 



And yet, viewed from the utilitarian standpoint, there is a 

 certain value in classifying organisms as injurious or beneficial. 

 The danger lies not in the classification itself, but in the risk 

 attendant upon a judgment hastily made or one based on circum- 

 stantial or partial evidence. Being the dominant form of life 

 on the earth, it is only natural that we measure the usefulness 

 of things by their immediate effect on ourselves or our interests 

 rather than on the whole complex of nature. 



An intimate knowledge of the use of wild life is indispensable 

 to sane conservation. Anything known to be useful may justly 

 demand protection. Anything known to be of no utility in 

 nature may justly be accorded destruction. Ignorance has 

 caused the waste characteristic of the past. Knowledge must 

 prevent waste in the future. 



What may not seem to be of use today may be of great 

 importance tomorrow. It appears that the economic value of 

 wild life seldom becomes evident until the form becomes extinct, 

 or at least diminished in numbers. It was only a few years 

 ago that fish were so abundant that no attention whatever was 

 paid to their life-histories. Today the study of ichthyology, 

 including fish-hatching, is a necessity, in order that the supply 

 of this kind of food may continue to be available. Not many 

 years ago people believed that there was an inexhaustible supply 

 of game. Today strict game laws and the most careful conser- 

 vation alone prevent the extinction of many forms. 



Fifty years ago the farmer in the east may have lost some 

 grain and corn from the depredations of birds, but he either 

 planted an extra acre or two to make up for the loss or took it 

 as a matter of course. At the present time, however, when we 

 find not only much of the available land under cultivation, but 

 even that cut up into small tracts and men attempting to earn 

 a living on ten or twenty acres instead of on eighty or a hundred, 

 the depredations of birds are more noticeable. The loss of a 

 sack of grain is hardly noticeable in a large field, but let the 

 same amount be lost in a two- or three-acre field and the loss 

 becomes relatively important and very apparent. It is only 

 natural, therefore, that at the present time complaints against 

 birds are more frequent and more insistent. 



