September 15, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



379 



We would urge the rigid exclusion of do- 

 mestic cats and dogs from national parks. 

 Cats are the relentless enemies of small birds; 

 they are forever on the alert, and in ninety- 

 nine cases out of a hundred can not be trusted, 

 however well fed they may have been at home, 

 to let birds alone. The fact that they readily 

 go wild, that is, quickly revert to a feral state, 

 makes it all the more important that they be 

 kept out of unsettled regions. To admit them 

 would mean adding one more predator to the 

 original fauna, and this would tend to disturb 

 the original balance, by making the mainte- 

 nance of a normal bird population difficult or 

 impossible. 



Equal vigilance should be used to exclude 

 all non-native species from the parks, even 

 though they be non-predaceous. In the finely 

 adjusted balance already established between 

 the native animal life and the food supply, 

 there is no room for the interpolation of an 

 additional species. If pheasants be intro- 

 duced, and allowed to become established in 

 the wild, the native quail and grouse will in- 

 evitably suffer from competition with them at 

 the season of minimum food supply, and will 

 be numerically reduced in consequence. The 

 same is true of elk in competition with the na- 

 tive deer, and of many imported small birds 

 in rivalry with the native varieties. In the 

 latter connection we need only mention the 

 well known instance of the English sparrow. 

 Cattle and sheep are also of importance as ele- 

 ments hostile to natural conditions, but their 

 destructiveness has already been emphasized 

 by foresters. 



Thus far we have laid chief stress on the 

 importance of the national parks to recreation, 

 and have shown the necessity, in adapting 

 them for this purpose, of retaining the orig- 

 inal balance in plant and animal life. But 

 the same necessity attaches to their adaptation 

 for another end, hardly less important than 

 recreation, namely, research in natural his- 

 tory. As the settlement of the country pro- 

 gresses and the original aspect of nature is al- 

 tered, the national parks will probably be the 

 only areas remaining unspoiled for scientific 

 study, and this is of the more significance 



when we consider how far the scientific meth- 

 ods of investigating nature then obtaining will 

 be in advance of those now applied to the 

 same study. 



As a final requirement, we would urge that pro- 

 vision be made in every large national park for 

 a trained resident naturalist who, as a member 

 of the park staff, would look after the interests 

 of the animal life of the region and aid in ma- 

 king it known to the public. His main duty 

 would be to familiarize himself through inten- 

 sive study with the natural conditions and 

 interrelations of the park fauna, and to make 

 practical recommendations for their mainte- 

 nance. Plans to decrease the number of any 

 of the predatory species would be carried out 

 only with his sanction and under his direction. 

 He would be able to establish and supervise 

 local feeding places for birds and mammals 

 during the tourist season, and could do this 

 without in any serious degree altering natural 

 conditions. His acquaintance with the local 

 fauna would enable him to communicate mat- 

 ters of interest to the public in popularly 

 styled illustrated leaflets and newspaper ar- 

 ticles, on sign posts, and by lectures and dem- 

 onstrations at central camps. He would help 

 awaken people to a livelier interest in wild 

 life, and to a healthy and intelligent curiosity 

 about things of nature. Our experience has 

 persuaded us that the average camper in the 

 mountains is hungry for information about 

 the animal life he encounters. A few sugges- 

 tions are usually sufficient to make him eager 

 to acquire his natural history at first-hand, 

 with the result that the recreative value of his 

 few days or weeks in the open is greatly en- 

 hanced. 



We have attempted in these columns to em- 

 phasize the value of national parks as places 

 for recreation and for scientific research, two 

 of their uses that have been rather com m only 

 overlooked, and to show the importance in 

 both connections of the animal life they con- 

 tain. If the reasons and instances we have 

 adduced are valid, there is surely ample war- 

 rant for saying that the animals in the parks 

 should be given more care and attention than 



