160 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
the extinct species of the same or related groups? How do specialists in other 
countries, or workers in other fields, handle such and such questions? These are 
all matters having a vital interest in the work of any specialist, and, if they are 
ignored, only inferior work can result. It is hard to imagine a student especially 
interested in any group of mammals or in the fauna of any given region who does 
not keenly desire to learn all he can of the related forms of the world, living or 
extinct, or of the technique of other workers who are dealing with them. Such 
a student is handicapped beyond measure. 
The future of the fur-bearing animals looks dark indeed. Virtual extinction 
of many species is imminent unless prompt and effective means for their pro- 
tection are devised and enforced. The tremendous popularity of furs of all 
kinds, the greatly increased number of persons who can or do afford expensive 
clothing of this kind, and the consequent price on the head of every living fur- 
bearer, threaten speedily to wipe certain mammals from the face of the earth. 
It is absolutely certain that many species can withstand the present yearly toll 
only a short while longer. With raw skunk skins selling in New York City during 
February up to $12.50 each wholesale, what chance has the animal for existence 
as a wild creature? 
The offerings at the New York raw fur sale in February included over 1,121,000 
domestic skins, and a very great many more from foreign countries. Among 
those listed were 27,000 red fox, 175,000 opossum, 73,000 raccoon, 32,000 wolf 
(probably including coyote), 239,000 skunk, 4350 badger, 6200 gray fox, 41,500 
mink', 7700 marten, 58,000 civet cat, 68,000 ermine, and 9800 wild cat and lynx. 
The foreign items included, for example, 234,000 Australian opossum, 325,000 
squirrel, and 23,500 kangaroo and wallaby skins. This is only one sale in one 
city, but newspaper reports state that the receipts totaled $10,600,000. 
The fur-bearing animals are a mighty asset to the country, but unless they 
are carefully guarded by wise legislation and a favorable public sentiment we will 
soon be without them. It is doubtful if the ^Tur farms’’ can furnish enough skins 
to keep the particular species raised on them in fashionable demand. The main 
supply must come from wild-killed animals, and few species can long stand the 
present killing. Those familiar with conditions in the field know only too well 
that the time of practical extinction for several valuable species is dangerously 
near at hand. Vernon Bailey, chief field naturalist of the Biological Survey, 
once estimated that every living badger on a western ranch was worth $100 to 
the land-owner as a destroyer of noxious rodents, and the economic value of 
the skunk and others of the. smaller carnivores is well known. But here are the 
skins of 4350 of these one-hundred-dollar badgers offered in one sale of raw furs, 
together with the skins of 239,000 grubworm destroying skunks, which will be 
manufactured into articles to be used a comparatively short time and discarded. 
It is a question if many of the mammals suffering this depletion from the de- 
mands of fashion are not of more permanent value to the country in other ways, 
and their certain extermination a serious national loss. — N. H. 
