HARDY ON PROVINCIAL ACCLIMATIZATION. 21 



zen of the country, either wild or in a state of domestication, 

 requires great forethought as regards the aptitude to dwell and 

 thrive in a new home, by comparing the conditions of its past 

 existence with those under which it is expected to live in future. 

 Indeed, without such proper knowledge of the minuter habits and 

 requirements of animals, failure is ine\itable ; but more than enough 

 has been shown to establish it beyond cavil as a branch of science, a 

 practical oifshoot of the interesting science of natural history.* 



We now come to consider the proper subject of this paper — the 

 question of Provincial Acclimatization as applicable to Nova Scotia. 

 I have so far draT\ai attention to the advances made by the antipodal 

 colonists in this direction, to show how the objections of distance, 

 expense and uncertainty of results, have all been put aside for ends 

 thought worthy of such sacrifices. But Australia was a country 

 craving animal immigration, her large and wealthy population 

 demanding many of the absent table luxuries of the old world, and 

 her youth eager for the time when the boundless forests and grassy 

 plains should abound wuth the stag or roe, in place of the mon- 

 otonous marsupials which as yet had afforded the only material for 

 the chase. In Atlantic America, on the contrary, instead of hav- 

 ing to supplant the indigenous annuals, we possess, in a state of 

 nature, some of the noblest forms of animal life, which no longer 

 called upon to supply the aboriginal Indians with their sole means 

 of subsistence, may be called on with that moderation which should 

 always characterize a civilized people, to afford both the invigorat- 

 ing pleasures of sport and luxuries for the markets. Every stream 

 and lake abounds with trout, and there are but few rivers from ' 

 Cape Sable to the Labrador which the salmon does not annually 

 attempt to ascend. 



^Vhat then is to be desired ? Has not America, receiving from 

 the east all those useful animals which accompany man in his mi- 

 grations, and which, retiu-ning to a state of nature in the plains of 

 Mexico and South America, have multiplied so greatly as to afford 

 a staple product for exportation, given all imaginable luxuries to 

 the new-coming nations in the produce of her forests, prairies, 

 rivers, and sea coasts ? Yes, but the gift has been abused. It is 

 sad to contemplate the wanton destruction of game and game fish 



* Applied Natural History it has sometimes been termed. 



