308 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
The development of the continent of North America has been one 
of the wonders of the history of the world, and we on this side of the 
Atlantic almost hold our breath as we try to realise the material 
wealth and splendour and the ardent intellectual and social progress 
that have turned the United States into an imperial nation. But we 
know what has happened to the American bison. We know the 
danger that threatens the pronghorn, one of the most isolated and 
interesting of living creatures, the Virginian deer, the mule-deer, and 
the bighorn sheep. Even in the wide recesses of Canada, the big- 
horn, the caribou, the elk, the wapiti, the white mountain goat, and 
the bears are being rapidly driven back by advancing civilisation. In 
South America less immediate danger seems to threaten the jaguar 
and maned wolf, the tapirs and ant-eaters and sloths, but the energy 
of the rejuvenated Latin races points to a huge encroachment of 
civilisation on wild nature at no distant date. 
You will understand that I am giving examples and not a cata- 
logue even of threatened terrestrial mammals. I have said nothing 
of the aquatic carnivores, nothing of birds, or of reptiles, or of batra- 
chians and fishes. And to us who are zoologists, the vast destruction 
of invertebrate life, the sweeping out, as forests are cleared and the 
soil tilled, of innumerable species that are not even named or 
described, is a real calamity. I do not wish to appeal to sentiment. 
Man is worth many sparrows; he is worth all the animal population 
of the globe, and if there were not room for both, the animals must 
go. I will pass no judgment on those who find the keenest pleasure 
of life in gratifying the primeval instinct of sport. I will admit that 
there is no better destiny for the lovely plumes of a rare bird than to 
enhance the beauty of a beautiful woman. I will accept the plea of 
those who prefer a well-established trinomial to a moribund species. 
But I do not admit the right of\ the present generation to careless 
indifference or to wanton destruction. Hach generation is the 
guardian of the existing resources of the world; it has come into a 
great inheritance, but only as a trustee. Weare learning to preserve 
the relics of early civilisations and the rude remains of man’s 
primitive arts and crafts. Every civilised nation spends great sums 
on painting and sculpture, on libraries and museums. Living animals 
are of older lineage, more perfect craftsmanship and greater beauty 
than any of the creations of man. And although we value the work 
of our forefathers, we do not doubt but that the generations yet un- 
born will produce their own artists and writers, who may equal or 
surpass the artists and writers of the past. But there is no resur- 
rection or recovery of an extinct species, and it is not merely that 
here and there one species out of many is threatened, but that whole 
genera, families and orders are in danger. 
Now let me turn to what is being done and what has been done 
for the preservation of fauna. I must begin by saying, and this was 
one of the principal reasons for selecting the subject of my Address, 
that we who are professional zoologists, systematists, anatomists, 
embryologists, and students of general biological problems, in this 
country at least, have not taken a sufficiently active part in the 
