CHAPTER XVII 
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF THE LARGE 
AMERICAN MAMMALS 
URING the past five years the question of the effective 
preservation or the practical extermination of the best 
wild life of North America has become thoroughly acute. 
Ever since 1904 the saving of our big game and our birds has 
completely overshadowed the academic study of those species. 
Thoughtful and conscientious men and women have acknowl- 
edged that it is wrong to spend all time and all efforts in 
studying the anatomy, habits and classification of our birds 
and mammals in utter indifference to the fact that those very 
forms are being exterminated. In a professional zoologist, 
no matter whether his habitat be America, Europe, Asia 
or Africa, indifference to the proper protection of wild life 
quickly becomes a crime; and any zoologist who now remains 
deaf to the distress calls of perishing species is unworthy of 
his profession, and deserves to be compelled to work for a 
living. A number of “bird men” and “mammal men”’ have 
awakened to a realizing sense of their obligations to living 
things and are hard at work “on the firing-line,” endeavor- 
ing to save the remnant. 
199 
