MAN AND NATURE.
The American Naturalist draws attention to the well-known fact, that the larger game of the Far West has been long diminishing in numbers. This, it goes on to say, is especially true of the bison, an animal which is unable to escape from its pursuers, and which can hardly be called a game animal. The once huge southern herd has been reduced to a few individuals in North-western Texas. The Dakota herd numbers only some seventy-five thousand head, a number which will soon be reduced to zero if the present rate of extermination continues. The Montana herd is now the object of relentless slaughter, and will soon follow the course of the other two herds. When scattered individuals represent these herds, a few hunters will one day pick them off, and the species will be extinct.
Let the government place a small herd in each of the national parks, and let the number be maintained at a definite figure. Let the excess escape into the surrounding country, so as to preserve the species for the hunters. Let herds of moose, elk, bighorn, black and white-tailed deer, and antelope, be maintained in the same way. Let the Carnivora roam at will; and in a word, protect nature from the destructive outlawry of men whose prehistoric instincts are not yet dead. Let the newer instinct of admiration for nature’s wonders have scope. Let the desire for knowledge of nature’s greatest mystery—life—have some opportunity. Let there be kept a source of supply for zoological societies and museums, so that science may ever have material for its investigations. By securing the preservation of these noblest of nature’s works, Congress will be but extending the work it has so grandly sustained in the past, in the support of scientific research and the education of the people.