MAMMALS AS A SOURCE OF HUMAN FOOD 23 



very important source of food for prospectors, miners, trappers and 

 others over a vast area of the northern country. Its flesh, together 

 with that of the moose, is served to travellers on Yukon River steam- 

 ers and in the hotels of that region. The great herds of bison that once 

 provided meat for early travellers over the Great Plains, and for the 

 workmen engaged in the construction of the first railroads across the 

 plains, are more fully discussed in other chapters. 



The reindeer has for centuries been a domesticated animal in north- 

 ern Europe, where its flesh is used as food. It was introduced into 

 Alaska in 1891 as a source of food for the natives, the herds now 

 numbering over 250,000, and into Labrador in 1907.* 



In Africa, buffaloes, many species of antelopes and other large mam- 

 mals have always furnished meat in abundance to the natives, as well 

 as to exploring expeditions and "white settlers. Though in many lo- 

 calities they have been greatly reduced in numbers, they are still an 

 important source of human food. 



Of the smaller mammals, rabbits are far the most important as 

 a food supply for the human race, in addition to providing healthful 

 recreation for a large army of hunters. Palmer estimates that 

 25,000,000 wild rabbits are killed annually in the United States, worth, 

 at an average of twenty cents each, $5,000,000 for their meat, in addi- 

 tion to the value of such of the skins as are utilized in the fur in- 

 dustry; 465,000 cottontails were killed in New York State in 1918, 

 2,700,000 in Pennsylvania in 1919, and 293,625 in Virginia in I92O. 8 

 Estimates for other states are not at hand. There are short open sea- 

 sons in nearly half the states, mostly eastern, where rabbits do no 

 great amount of harm, but no restrictions elsewhere except the usual 

 requirement of hunting licenses in order to hunt any game. Dearborn 

 tells us that prior to the World War 100,000,000 rabbits were annually 

 marketed in France; that England produces from 30,000,000 to 

 40,000,000 and imports $1,000,000 worth from Belgium and 

 $4,500,000 worth from Australia and New Zealand annually; that in 

 1911 London consumed 500,000 pounds and Paris 200,000 pounds of 

 rabbit meat daily. 9 Those from Australasia are the wild species unwisely 

 introduced there, but the others are likely largely raised in confine- 



7 Hadwen and Palmer, Reindeer in Alaska, U. S. Dept. Agric. Bull. No. 1089, 1922. 

 Jones, Fur farming in Canada, pp. 92-95, 1913. Hewitt, Conservation of the wild life 

 of Canada, 1921. McAllister, California, Fish and Game, ix, 14, 1923. 



8 Palmer, U. S. Dept. Agric. Bull. 1048, 1922. Seton makes the value $25,000,000 

 annually. 



9 Dearborn, Rabbit growing to supplement the meat supply, Yearbook U. S. Dept. 

 Agric. for 1918, pp. 145-152; Rabbit farming, Dept. Bull. No. 1090, 1920. 



