CHAPTER LXIX 



ANIMAL FRIENDS— WILD ANIMALS CAPTURED FOR 

 VARIOUS ECONOMIC PURPOSES— BENEFICIALS 



The present section has mainly been concerned with the 

 animal kingdom as a source of food, although in dealing with 

 domesticated forms it has been found convenient to mention com- 

 modities of other kinds, such as wool. 



We now have to deal with economic products other than food, 

 for the sake of which wild animals of various kinds are captured. 

 Prominent among these desiderata are furs, skins, fats, and oils, 

 besides which there are a great number of less important articles 

 of commerce, such as sponges and medicinal substances, that call 

 for passing notice. Animal products employed entirely or mainly 

 for decorative purposes will be reserved for treatment under 

 Animal Esthetics. 



FUR-BEARING MAMMALS (Mammalia) 



Although in temperate regions, as we have seen (p. 228), 

 woven clothes have replaced for ordinary purposes the garments 

 of skin and fur devised by prehistoric races, this by no means 

 applies to the colder parts of the world, where ordinary clothing 

 does not afford sufficient protection from the rigorous climate. 

 The nomad tribes of the Russian steppes, for example, make large 

 use of such garments, and the heathen Ostiaks of North Siberia do 

 so to a still greater extent (fig. 1220). Of the latter Brehm says 

 (in North Pole to Equator) that "... they use nothing but the 

 skin of the reindeer for clothing, and only employ the furs of other 

 animals for the occasional decoration of the reindeer, or, as the 

 Russians call them, stag skins. Their dress consists of a close- 

 fitting skin coat reaching to the knee; in the men it is slit down 

 the breast, in the women it is open down the whole front, but held 

 together with leather thongs; a hood of the same material is 



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