224 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
tion of the mammals. Agriculture, the meat supply, and the fencing 
in of land is eliminating the game of Africa. Legitimate destruction 
by sportsmen had been comparatively a small feature. The meat 
market has been the chief cause of extinction of game animals through- 
out Alaska. 
FORTY-FIVE YEARS OF PERSONAL OBSERVATION IN AMERICA 
When Osborn first went to the Rocky Mountain region, as a young 
fossil hunter, in 1877, game animals were still universal. There was 
little agriculture and no barbed wire fences. Game was being killed 
off gradually by settlers and ranchmen, and, at times, ruthlessly by 
Indians. Bison were becoming scarce, but all the members of the 
deer family were extremely abundant and found wherever there was 
browse. With Sunday shooting he kept their fossil hunting camp 
supplied with meat — with mountain sheep, which were then in the 
Bad Lands, with antelope, and with black-tailed deer. Even as late 
as 1890, elk, deer, and antelope were extremely abundant in the up- 
lands of Colorado. Elimination of game throughout this district is 
chiefly due to the winter supply of meat for ranchmen and, in a less 
degree, for the markets. All over the United Stales the legitimate meat 
for settlers and, to a limited degree, for the markets, has been the chief 
cause of elimination. Indians have come in and entirely cleaned out 
certain game retreats, like that of the Hell Creek region of Montana, 
which was full of game when Hornaday visited it in 1903. 
Thus the three continents, Europe, North America, Asia, and finally 
Africa, have eliminated their wild animals through similar causes — 
the food supply, fur supply, industry and art, agriculture, deforesta- 
tion, and, as a final blow but in a minor degree, sport. The number of 
game animals still surviving in the mountains of Asia is relatively 
great, but in many areas game is on the danger line. 
RECENT DESTRUCTION OF FUR AND HIDE-BEARING ANIMALS 
Nothing in the history of creation has paralleled the ravages of the 
fur and hide trade, which, with the bone fertilizer trade, now threatens 
the entire vertebrate kingdom. The legitimate use of furs for protec- 
tion in cold weather has long since passed. Furs are now a fashion, 
just as feathers were thirty years ago. The trade has passed almost 
entirely into the hands of people of Oriental and Asiatic origin. Mil- 
lions of dollars are spent annually in advertising. Furs are worn in 
