84 
NUMBERS OF "WILD ANIMALS. 
Extirpation of Quadrupeds. 
Although man never fails greatly to diminish, and is per¬ 
haps destined ultimately to exterminate, such of the larger wild 
quadrupeds as he cannot profitably domesticate, yet their num¬ 
bers often fluctuate, and even after they seem almost extinct, 
they sometimes suddenly increase, without any intentional 
steps to promote such a result on his part. During the wars 
which followed the French Revolution, the wolf multiplied in 
many parts of Europe, partly because the hunters were with¬ 
drawn from the woods to chase a nobler game, and partly 
because the bodies of slain men and horses supplied this vora¬ 
cious quadruped with more abundant food. The same animal 
became again more numerous in Poland after the general dis¬ 
arming of the rural population by the Russian Government. 
On the other hand, when the hunters pursue the wolf, the 
graminivorous wild quadrupeds increase, and thus in turn pro¬ 
mote the multiplication of their great four-footed destroyer by 
augmenting the supply of his nourishment. So long as the 
fur of the beaver was extensively employed as a material for 
fine hats, it bore a very high price, and the chase of this quad¬ 
ruped was so keen that naturalists feared its speedy extinction. 
When a Parisian manufacturer invented the silk hat, which 
soon came into almost universal use, the demand for beavers’ 
fur fell off, and this animal—whose habits, as we have seen, are 
an important agency in the formation of bogs and other modi¬ 
fications of forest nature—immediately began to increase, reap¬ 
peared in haunts which he had long abandoned, and can no 
longer be regarded as rare enough to be in immediate danger 
of extirpation. Thus the convenience or the caprice of Parisian 
fashion has unconsciously exercised an influence which may 
sensibly affect the physical geography of a distant continent. 
Since the invention of gunpowder, some quadrupeds have 
completely disappeared from many European and Asiatic 
countries where they were formerly numerous. The last wolf 
was killed in Great Britain two hundred years ago, and the 
bear was extirpated from that island still earlier. The British 
