CHAPTER II. 
TRANSFER, MODIFICATION, AND EXTIRPATION OF VEGETABLE AND 
OF ANIMAL SPECIES. 
MODERN GEOGRAPHY EMBRACES ORGANIC LIFE—TRANSFER OF VEGETABLE 
LIFE-FOREIGN PLANTS GROWN IN THE UNITED STATES—AMERICAN PLANTS 
GROWN IN EUROPE-MODES OF INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN PLANTS—VEGE¬ 
TABLES, HOW AFFECTED BY TRANSFER TO FOREIGN SOILS—EXTIRPATION OF 
VEGETABLES—ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC PLANTS-ORGANIC LIFE AS A GEOLOGICAL 
AND GEOGRAPHICAL AGENCY-ORIGIN AND TRANSFER OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS 
-EXTIRPATION OF ANIMALS—NUMBERS OF BIRDS IN THE UNITED STATES- 
BIRDS AS SOWERS AND CONSUMERS OF SEEDS, AND AS DESTROYERS OF IN¬ 
SECTS—DIMINUTION AND EXTIRPATION OF BIRDS—INTRODUCTION OF BIRDS— 
UTILITY OF INSECTS AND WORMS—INTRODUCTION OF INSECTS—DESTRUCTION 
OF INSECTS—REPTILES—DESTRUCTION OF FISH—INTRODUCTION AND BREED¬ 
ING OF FISH—EXTIRPATION OF AQUATIC ANIMALS—MINUTE ORGANISMS. 
Modern Geography embraces Organic Life. 
It was a narrow view of geography which confined that 
science to delineation of terrestrial surface and outline, and to 
description of the relative position and magnitude of land and 
water. In its improved form, it embraces not only the globe 
itself, but the living things which vegetate or move upon it, 
the varied influences they exert upon each other, the recip¬ 
rocal action and reaction between them and the earth they 
inhabit. Even if the end of geographical studies were only to 
obtain a knowledge of the external forms of the mineral and 
fluid masses which constitute the globe, it would still be 
necessary to take into account the element of life; for every 
plant, every animal, is a geographical agency, man a destruc- 
