OCT 4 1921 



By W. B. Bei,l, 

 Assistant Biologist in Economic In vestigations, 

 Bureau of Biological Survey. 



WOLVES, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears, and 

 their kind have slaughtered their prey from pre- 

 historic times. Sometimes they pulled down victims in 

 plenty, sometimes their pickings wore lean — until the advent 

 of civilized man. In man's introduced herds of cattle, sheep, 

 goats, colts, and other domestic stock, the original rangers 

 of the country found a readily available supply of food to 

 be preyed upon day after day and night after night. What 

 more natural than for the hungry wolf to draw upon the 

 ever-replenished reservoir discovered in the stock corral 

 or on the open range? 



The nature of the business on which the predatory kind 

 were engaged was no secret, of course, and gun, trap, and 

 poison were resorted to by the early ranchers, each man for 

 himself, with now and then a community hunt as the needs 

 were more or less pressing. Learning that they had to con- 

 tend with protectors of their new-found food supply, the 

 prowlers became more and more wary in approach and kill, 

 until what originated in a mere matter of satisfying a crav- 

 ing for food has developed into a Avar to the death. 



Uncle Sam, tired of a drain on his resources of from 

 $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 every year through the slaughter 

 of domestic stock by predatory animals, now keeps con- 



Separate No. 845, from Yearbook of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 1920. 

 46296°— 21 289 



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