304 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF 
SCIENCE, DUNDEE, 1912. 
ADDRESS TO THE ZOOLOGICAL SECTION. 
By P. Cuaumers Mitcuett, D.Sc., F.R.S., President of the Section. 
ZooLoGicAL GARDENS AND THE PRESERVATION OF FAUNA. 
Ty thinking over possible subjects for this Presidential Address, I 
was strongly tempted to enter on a discussion of the logical methods 
and concepts that we employ in Zoology. The temptation was 
specially strong to a Scot, speaking in Scotland, that he should devote 
the hour when the prestige of the presidential chair secured him 
attention, to putting his audience right on logic and metaphysics. 
But I reflected that Zoology is doing very well, however its logic be 
wavering, and that as all lines subtend an equal angle at infinity, it 
would be of small moment if I were to postpone my remarks on meta- 
physics. And so I am to essay a more modest but a more urgent 
theme, and ask you to consider the danger that threatens the surviv- 
ing land-fauna of this globe. A well-known example may serve to 
remind you how swift is the course of destruction. In 1867, when 
the British Association last met at Dundee, there were still millions 
of bison roaming over the prairies and forests of North America. In 
that year the building of the Union Pacific, the first great trans- 
continental railway, cut the herd in two. The Southern division, 
consisting itself of several million individuals, was wiped out between 
1871 and 1874, and the practical destruction of the Northern herd was 
completed between 1880 and 1884. At present there are only two 
herds of wild bison in existence. In the Yellowstone Park only 
about twenty individuals remained in 1911, the greater part of the 
herd having been killed by poachers. A larger number, over three 
hundred, still survive near the Great Slave Lake, and there are 
probably nearly two thousand in captivity, in various Zoological 
Gardens, private domains, and State Parks. It is only by the de- 
liberate and conscious interference of man that the evil wrought by 
man has been arrested. 
A second example that I may select is also taken from the con- 
tinent of North America, but it is specially notable because it is some- 
times urged, as in India, that migratory birds need no protection. 
Audubon relates that just a century ago Passenger Pigeons existed in 
countless millions, and that for four days at a time the sky was black 
with the stream of migration. The final extinction of this species 
has taken place since the last meeting of the Association in Dundee. 
In 1906 there were actually five single birds living, all of which had 
been bred in captivity, and I understand that these last survivors of 
a prolific species are now dead, although the birds ranged in countless 
numbers over a great continent. 
