BULLETIN 



OF THE 



Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. 



VOL. VIII. No. 3. 



ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY. 



Read before the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, 

 April 10. 1903. 



BY FRANKLIN W. BARROWS, M. D. 



Some one has said that economic zoology is the study of 

 animals from the standpoint of dollars and cents. It is this 

 and more; for it includes the consideration of all the influences 

 exerted by animals for the good or the ill of man, their' reputed 

 master. The object of the science, or perhaps it should be called 

 the art, is the complete realization of our dominion over animals. 

 The literature of the subject is found scattered through the reports 

 of the various scientific departments of all governments. Probably 

 a very fair idea of the present state of the subject can be obtained 

 by consulting the reports of our own government. 



Of the actual beginnings of economic zoology we know abso- 

 lutely nothing. There is considerable evidence that the cave- 

 dwellers used a variety of animals, including fishes, for food, but 

 there is nothing to show that these primitive folk had established 

 friendly relations with any of their animal neighbors. They 

 clothed themselves in the skins of beasts and made rude tools from 

 bones and horns, but it was evidently reserved for a later race to 

 begin that long campaign of education which has given to us 

 our domestic animals. With the taming and controlling of the 



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