ESTHETIC RELATIONS OF MAMMALS 9 



fited by a little time spent far from field or shop. Not that they need 

 physical exercise their need is for relaxation, relief from monotony, 

 a change of scenery or of viewpoint or of mental processes. 



All these feel the urgent call of the outdoor world, and wherever the 

 seeker for relaxation may go, in the forest, by the streamside, in the 

 mountains or on the plains, the mammalian life encountered adds 

 largely to the pleasure of the holiday or the vacation. The landscape 

 artist, recognizing this, introduces into his paintings a few cattle in a 

 pasture, horses drawing a cart or a plow through the field, a flock of 

 sheep grazing on a hillside or a deer in the forest. 



The esthetic value of mammals is recognized in the laws for their 

 protection in our great public playgrounds, the national parks, where 

 hunting, injuring or destroying the wild animals is strictly prohibited, 

 not because of their intrinsic value but in order that they may be 

 seen by visitors. In consequence of their immunity from molestation 

 they become very tame, and seeing them in the open adds to the delight 

 of thousands of visitors annually. Mammals in cages in circus men- 

 ageries, those with greater liberty in large enclosures of zoological 

 parks, the bear pits and the like in municipal parks, are usually sur- 

 rounded by interested spectators, both old and young, who derive much 

 pleasure from the privilege. Automobile tourists, crossing the continent 

 on vacation tours, are delighted at every exhibition of wild life along 

 the route prairie-dogs on their mounds "barking" at the passers-by, 

 jack rabbits bounding over the plains, ground squirrels scurrying to 

 their holes, tree squirrels chattering among the trees, an occasional 

 coyote loping over a distant slope, and great is the rejoicing at a rare 

 glimpse of a deer or an antelope. 



Some species of wild animals captured alive or raised in captivity 

 for the purpose of exhibition in menageries and zoological parks bring 

 high prices. Three pygmy elephants brought $15,000. A pair of full- 

 grown, giraffes is worth from $15,000 to $20,000 dollars. One Indian 

 rhinoceros cost $8,000. An adult Indian elephant is worth about 

 $3,000, a common hippopotamus about the same and a pygmy hippo- 

 potamus about $4,500. The price of a pair of Prjevalsky wild horses 

 was $5,000, and $6,000 was paid for one Abyssinian wild ass. 1 



Thousands of men and women who do not hunt frankly say that 

 they would be willing to give considerable sums of money for the 

 privilege of seeing deer, elk, moose and other such animals in a wild 



1 Blair, In the zoo, pp. n, 12, 63, 65, 78, 92, 96, 1930. 



