THE WILD MAMMALS OF THE FARM 07 
even with early social affairs and military enterprises. The 
beaver and the badger and the wolverine and the bison rightly 
occupy a place on the seals of certain of our states. 
These fine quadrupeds, once so abundant, are gone from 
our settled country. Save for a remnant, preserved in 
‘reservations, largely as a result of private enterprise, the 
bison is entirely gone. The others are crowded to the far 
northern frontier. We have fur-bearers still, and also a fur 
trade: indeed, more money is spent for furs nowadays than 
ever before in the country’s history. But our furs are now 
derived from animals which but a generation ago were mainly 
considered hardly worth skinning. The four nativemammals 
which now chiefly supply the market are, in their respective 
order, muskrat, skunk, opossum and raccoon, with the mink 
still furnishing a lesser proportion of much more valuable 
skins. These are obtained in considerable numbers from all 
parts of the country still, but the getting of them is no longer 
aman’s work. It is rather the recreation of the enterprising 
farm boy. 
The white man brought with him to America all the differ- 
ent kinds of mammals that he now uses. He found none 
domesticated here. The Indian was a hunter, not a 
husbandman. The white man was a more ruthless hunter, 
equipped with better weapons. The Indian would no more 
kill off allthe beaver and otter on his range, than the stock- 
man would dispose of all his herd. He kept a portion to 
breed and renew the supply. But the white man, having his 
domesticated animals to fall back on, slaughtered the wild 
ones ruthlessly without regard for the future. Indeed,, the 
wantonness of the slaughter of some of them—notably of the 
bison—is a disgraceful chapter in our country’s history. 
The mammals that are of great importance to man fall in 
three groups: hoofed animals, beasts of prey and rodents. 
There were some fine native hoofed animals in North America. 
