2 Introduction 



We found much to attract us. The presence of a football 

 stadium and athletic fields on the edge of the area brought 

 thousands of people to it. We watched the continual recon- 

 cilement of apparently unreconcilable things. We could look 

 in one direction and see the crowds and had only to turn in 

 another to glimpse newly arrived birds. We could hear the 

 honking cars which carried the noisy spectators from the 

 games, while close to us that brown-striped resident of the 

 cattails, the bittern, honked as it stood guard over its nesting 

 area. We began to understand how easily wildlife could 

 adapt itself to close association with man if man would only 

 cease his predation. We learned that the wild things would 

 lose much of their wildness if man's conduct did not' con- 

 stantly remind them that only by preserving their wildness 

 could they exist. We found that some wild creatures could 

 continue to carry on their normal lives with little friction, 

 while the lives of others were influenced by man to the point 

 of extinction. 



For a long period it was the fashion to eliminate man from 

 the typical wildlife story. The animals which were described 

 lived their lives in their native habitats, unmolested and un- 

 influenced by people. But now, in the marsh, in the moun- 

 tains, on the pampas of South America, in the forests of 

 Canada, and in nearly all hitherto remote places, conditions 

 have changed. Men hunt everywhere. Other activities, such 

 as drainage, filling, tree-cutting, building— due to commerce 

 and agriculture— directly and sometimes devastatingly affect 

 wildlife. To leave man out of the consideration of wildlife is 

 to ignore one of the most important factors. 



This book is primarily a description of the living aspects 

 of the marsh. If we touch on such subjects as anatomy, psy- 

 chology, and physiology, it is with the hope that such discus- 

 sion will serve to explain more fully the incidents about 

 which we write. We have endeavored to combine our labora- 

 tory experience, what we have gained from talks and lectures 



