XIII. THE WILD MAMMALS OF THE FARM 



"I'm truly sorry man's dominion 

 Has broken Nature's social union, 

 An' justifies that ill opinion, 



Which makes thee startle, 

 At me, thy poor earth-born companion 

 A n ' fellow-mortal! 



— Robert Burns {To a mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough). 



Aboriginal society in America was largely based on the 

 native wild beasts. They were more essential to the red 

 man than our flocks and herds are to us. His dependence 

 upon them was more direct and absolute. They furnished 

 him food and clothing and shelter and tools. His clothing 

 was made of skins; his eating and drinking vessels were of 

 horn and hide and bone. His knife was a beaver tooth. 

 Sinews, teeth, hair, hide, hoofs, intestines and bones 

 all served him. Out of them he got hammers and wedges 

 and drills and scrapers and clamps; threads and thongs and 

 boxes and bags; tools and supplies for all purposes. He 

 made textiles of hair and of quills, and in them-wrought the 

 expression of his esthetic ideals. 



The Indian was conquered and driven out in part by direct 

 assault, but in a far larger part by the destruction of his 

 resources in furs and game. Losing these, he became 

 dependent. Armed resistance by the eastern Indians ceased 

 with the passing of the beaver; by the Plains Indians, with 

 the passing of the buffalo. 



The earliest white settlements in America were supported 

 mainly by hunting and trapping and the sale of furs. Mis- 

 sionary zeal and desire for extension of empire promoted the 

 founding of colonies, but peltries provided the necessary 

 revenues for their maintenance. The fur trade was inti- 

 mately associated with our early colonial development and 



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