148 PRIMITIVE ANIMALS 



born, nurtured and finally captured in the few fast- 

 nesses of the wild jungle which still remain. 



Looking forward into the future, we may see the 

 tide of human expansion ever spreading, with here 

 and there an occasional ebb, and in time all the living 

 things that are not serviceable to man or cannot adapt 

 themselves to the conditions he imposes will dwindle 

 and disappear. The arts of breeding and acclimatiza- 

 tion will produce new and curious artificial forms to 

 supply the various needs of food, of raiment, of beauty 

 and convenience which only life has the requisite 

 cunning to produce and only human life the restless 

 activity to require. 



And with the universal disturbance in the economy 

 of Nature caused by the migrations and activity of 

 man, old resources of life and profit will be exhausted 

 and new resources sought ; old diseases will die out 

 or revive in places where they have long slumbered ; 

 new diseases will develop as the teeming populations 

 of man with their domestic animals and plants offer 

 new opportunities to parasites to attack them. 



With these problems and amid these surroundings 

 the naturalist of the future will be engaged, and he 

 may regret the time when the sea and land still 

 contained undiscovered forms of life that might 

 reveal little suspected links in the history of crea- 

 tion, unexploited regions where the traveller might 

 feel the thrill and the mystery of untouched and 



