$90 Dr Fleming on the Influence of Society on the 
must assume the character, not merely of the master, but the ty- 
rant of the soil. 
The war which man thus carries on against the lower ani- 
mals, is influenced, in a remarkable degree, by the progress of 
society. The wants of man increase in kind and variety with 
his advances in civilisation, and his means of supplying them 
become proportionally numerous. The war carried on by rude 
tribes is limited in its objects, and uncertain in its results. But 
with the progress of experience and improvement, the objects of 
the chace cease to be limited, while the methods of capture, and 
engines of death, become more numerous, complicated, and ef- 
fectual. The war is likewise influenced by circumstances of a 
local nature. In the warmer regions of the earth, the physical 
obstacles against which animals have to contend, are not so nu- 
merous as in the temperate and colder regions. There, too, 
man is not so intelligent or energetic. But in the higher lati- 
tudes, the changes of the season exercise a more powerful influ- 
ence, and, at intervals, place animals within the reach of capture, 
which at other times are in comparative safety. Here, too, 
man, having a more scanty supply yielded him by the vegetable 
kingdom, is compelled to be more active in the chace, and the 
climate in which he resides fits him, in a peculiar manner, for 
hardy enterprize. 
In attending to the checks imposed on the increase of many 
of the lower animals, we must view them, not merely as the ob- 
jects of the continued persecution of the human race, but as 
equally exposed with man himself, to experience the depopula- 
ting influence of various physical changes, — the volcanic erup- 
tion or earthquake, — floods, — droughts, — frosts or snows, — * 
and epizooties. Severity of season and contagious disease, may 
account indeed for the accumulation at one spot of more indivi- 
duals of a species, or of different species, than the quantity of 
food produced by the district could be supposed capable of main- 
taining. 
If we consider the dispersion of the human race over the 
earth’s surface, (for to what spot has man failed to find his 
way?), and the unremitting persecution which they have car- 
ried on against the lower animals, during the long term of near- 
ly 6000 years, varying their destructive weapons with the pro- 
