growth, while along the Gulf thé rank jungle springs up almost as rapidly 
as the axe and the machete can cut it Gown. “The brow bear of Alaska--the 
largest meat-eating land animal, and the least: shrew, weighing an ounce 
or less, are alike able to find precisely the conditions each requires in 
order to live. So does the California condor, the largest living bird, with 
a wing spread of almost 10 feet, and so also does the wren, scarcely as large 
as one's thumb, The narwhal, the sea lion, the polar bear, and the manatee, 
together with thousands upon thousands of other Species, Haye tenon mee 
on the shores of a continent where Nature seems to have exerted her limit- 
less capacity for providing accommodation for the greatest possible number 
and variety of creatures. 
The white pioneers, explorers, and trappers saw such an abundance 
of game and other wildlife when they came to North America that they could 
not adequately describe it. They spoke of flights of pigeons so tremendous 
that they "darkened the sun for hours on end," but the phrase has little 
meaning today, because we ourselves have never seen such spectacles and can 
scarcely imagine what they were like. Their tales of bison herds that 
covered the prairie for mile after mile also fail to give us a picture of 
the sights that.met the wondering gaze of those ae travelers. When 
those men noted a flight of wild oe they actually saw millions: of ‘individ- 
ual ducks and geese; when we of today observe a fli cht of wild fowl, We. are 
fortunate indeed if it numbers a aa thousands.’ “ | ayia me 
Abundance Unimpaired by Indians 
Enormous numbers of birds and other forms of wildlife were present 
despite the fact that the aborigines who inhabited the continent lived 
principaliy upon the fish and game. One might think it strange that wild- 
life should have persisted in such overwhelming abundance under constant 
utilization for human needs, whereas it declined before another race of 
men who lived principally upon agricultural products--upon grain, vege- 
tables, milk, and the meat of domestic animals. oe we examine the facts 
underlying this. apparent inconsistency we shall find the answer to the 
conundrum in the different ways the two races used sive land--the prinmor- 
dial domain of the native fauna. } 
The American Indians were gardeners but not farmers, In their sma a1 
primitive plots they cultivated beans, corn, and tobacco, but in er 
ited quantities that had their families been compelled to depend upon thes 
products alone, they would have starved. For food and ‘clothing they depended 
for the most part upon wildlife and uncultivated native plants. 
Then, too, the Indian ponulation was sparse and shifting, scattered 
over the vast area of the New World, Their crude agricultural enterprises 
<7] 
made little or no impression on the primeval cnvironment so favorable to 
the procuction of wildlife. With this productivity unchecked, the combined 
effects of all the hunting, trapping,. and fishing’ done by all the tribes 
resulted in no material decrease of the constantly replenished supply. ise 
some catastrophe had wiped out the Indian population, there would have re- 
mained in a year or two only a few scarcely discernible signs to indicate 
the hundreds of years of its occupancy, other than a féw shell mounds here 
a epi 
