302 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



mountain lions, wolves, bears, goats and four-footed 

 creatures of lesser degree many to one as compared 

 with their numbers to-day. 



Think of the wild bird life of those days, im- 

 possible approximately to estimate even in millions 

 passenger pigeons, for example, (now extinct) 

 which old records tell us used occasionally more or 

 less to cloud the sky for hours at a time. Think 

 of regular and usual migrations of wild geese, 

 swans, and ducks in numbers which would be alto- 

 gether impossible to-day even on occasions of ex- 

 traordinary concentration. It has recently been con- 

 tended that song birds are more plentiful now than 

 then, which may be true because vast forests have 

 given way to opens in which the song bird thrives. 

 It would be pitiful indeed if Nature had not provided 

 some compensation for losses so vast. 



Loss of the bulk of our splendid Heritage of 

 wild life is part of the price we pay for civilization. 

 The forest home of deer, moose, bear and others has 

 given way to opens. The prairie home of bison and 

 elk, and the plains where once lived sage hens and 

 antelope by the many millions, have become farms. 

 Living off the land means, for pioneers, living 

 largely off the game of the land, until replaced by 

 cattle. Hunting the creatures of the wilderness for 

 food is part of the business of settling a new coun- 

 try. "We say now/' writes Grinnell, "that all the 

 game has been killed off, and in fact some part of 

 it has been killed; but its total extermination came 



