September 20, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



355 



have been extended against lower and lower 

 occupants of the coveted territory. 



The human race has for long been the 

 dominant terrestrial species, and man has 

 a wider capacity for adaptation to different 

 environments, and an infinitely greater 

 power of transcending geographical barriers 

 than have been enjoyed by any other set of 

 animals. For a considerable time many of 

 the more primitive tribes, especially before 

 the advent of firearms, had settled down 

 into a kind of natural equilibrium with the 

 local mammalian fauna, but these tribes 

 have been first driven to a keener compe- 

 tition with the lower animals, and then, in 

 most parts of the world, have themselves 

 been forced almost or completely out of 

 existence. The resourceful and aggressive 

 higher races have now reached into the re- 

 motest parts of the earth and have become 

 the exterminators. It must now be the 

 work of the most intelligent and provident 

 amongst us to arrest this course of destruc- 

 tion and to preserve what remains. 



In Eiirope, unfortunately, there is little 

 left sufficiently large and important to ex- 

 cite the imagination. There is the Euro- 

 pean bison which has been extinct in west- 

 ern Europe for many centuries, whilst the 

 last was killed in east Prussia in 1755. 

 There remains a herd of about seven hun- 

 dred in the forests of Lithuania, strictly 

 protected by the Tsar, whilst there are 

 truly wild animals, in considerable num- 

 bers, in the Caucasus, small captive herds 

 on the private estates of the Tsar, the Duke 

 of Pless and Count Potocki, and a few in- 

 dividuals in various zoological gardens. 

 There is the beaver, formerly widespread 

 in Europe, now one of the rarest of living 

 mammals, and lingering in minute numbers 

 in the Rhone, the Danube, in a few Rus- 

 sian rivers and in protected areas in 

 Scandinavia. The wolf and the bear have 

 shrunk to the recesses of thick forests and 



the remotest mountains, gluttons to the 

 most barren regions of the north. The 

 chamois survives by favor of game laws 

 and the vast inaccessible areas to which it 

 can retreat, but the mouflon of Corsica and 

 Sardinia and the ibex in Spain are on the 

 verge of extinction. Every little creature, 

 from the otter, wild cat and marten to the 

 curious desman is disappearing. 



India contains the richest, the most 

 varied, and, from many points of view, the 

 most interesting part of the Asiatic fauna. 

 Notwithstanding the teeming human pop- 

 ulation it has supported from time imme- 

 morial, the extent of its area, its dense for- 

 ests and jungles, its magnificent series of 

 river valleys, mountains and hills have pre- 

 served until recent times a fauna rich in 

 individuals and species. The most casual 

 glance at the volumes by sportsmen and 

 naturalists written forty or fifty years ago 

 reveals the delight and wonder of travel in:' 

 India so comparatively recently as the time 

 when the association last met in Dundee. 

 Sir H. H. Johnston has borne witness that 

 even in 1895 a journey "through almost 

 any part of India was of absorbing inter- 

 est to the naturalist. ' ' All is changed now, 

 and there seems little doubt but that the 

 devastation in the wonderful mammalian 

 fauna has been wrought chiefly by British 

 military officers and civilians, partly di- 

 rectly, and partly by their encouragement 

 of the sporting instincts of the Mohamme- 

 dan population and the native regiments, 

 although the clearing of forests and the 

 draining of marshlands have played an im- 

 portant contributory part. The tiger has 

 no chance against the modern rifle. The 

 one-homed rhinoceros has been nearly ex- 

 terminated in northern India and Assam. 

 The magnificent gaur, one of the most 

 splendid of living creatures, has been al- 

 most killed off throughout the limits of its 

 range — southern India and the Malay 



