OSBOHN AND ANTHONY — CLOSE OF AGE OF MAMMALS 
231 
Therefore, we believe that if some more drastic methods of checking this 
perfectly appalling slaughter are not soon inaugurated, the fur industry 
will have been the means of quite definitely closing the Age of Mammals 
insofar as it applies to a number of species. 
DISCUSSION BY PROMINENT MAMMALOGISTS 
At the conclusion of the paper, Dr. W. T. Hornaday, director of the New York 
Zoological Park, who is the foremost advocate of wild life protection in the world, 
arose and commented on this joint paper. He began his remarks by stating that 
he thought Professor Osborn was entirely within bounds in saying that we were at 
the close of the Age of Mammals ; that to his mind there was nothing more terrible 
to contemplate at this time than the grinding and devastating power of modem 
civilization as it is exerted, not only on animal life generally, but on vegetable 
life and on all the products of nature; that the human race is increasing and 
spreading, and it is also increasing in its power and ingenuity to destroy. The 
Zoological Society receives reports and communications from a great many far- 
distant portions of the world, where there is today the greatest abundance of 
animal life, and the story that is told by that correspondence everywhere is the 
same. It is the story of the continuous and alarming disappearance of the most 
important v/ild animal forms. 
Taking Africa as an example. Doctor Hornaday said that a new influence has 
been brought to bear on the wild life of British East Africa, and of South Africa 
for that matter. The British government has been sending to British East Africa 
a great many ex-service men. Thej'' have been located there on farms, where they 
practically subsist on the resources of the country, living, to a great extent, on 
the game . Many of them are killing game wantonly, which they are well equipped 
to do, and none of them, he thinks, are preserving game. He stated that the 
Zoological Society had received most alarming reports from South Africa and from 
the Egyptian Soudan, and he continued as follows: '^We are in close touch with 
men in the Union of South Africa, who are deeply interested in preserving the rem- 
nants of Africa’s magnificent mammalian fauna and who will do all they can, 
under the tremendous handicaps that are upon them, to stem the tide of destruc- 
tion. We have been called upon for practical assistance and the Permanent Wild 
Life Protection Fund is now on the point of sounding an alarm gong throughout 
South Africa, chiefly for the purpose of attempting to arouse the people of South 
Africa to the danger that besets their best, most interesting, and most vital wild 
life. Mr. Anthony has named to you a number of important species in South 
Africa that are threatened. It is no exaggeration to say that the kudu, the white 
rhinoceros, of course, and many others that could be named, are on the point of 
total destruction. Here in the United States we are engaged in a hand to hand 
struggle to save the pronghorn antelope from going down and out as a species, 
in spite of our efforts, and literally before our eyes. I think that there never has 
been an American species which has been so persistent in getting on the toboggan 
slide of its own accord as the pronghorn antelope. It is delicate in body. It is 
easily exterminated in the wild state, and now every tendency of civilization is to 
destroy it.” 
