Fauna.—The number of wild animals in Germany is not very great. Foxes, martens, weasels, badgers and otters are to be found everywhere; bears are found in the Alps, wolves are rare, but they find their way sometimes from French territory to the western provinces, or from Poland to Prussia and Posen. Among the rodents the hamster and the field-mouse are a scourge to agriculture. Of game there are the roe, stag, boar and hare; the fallow deer and the wild rabbit are less common. The elk is to be found in the forests of East Prussia. The feathered tribes are everywhere abundant in the fields, woods and marshes. Wild geese and ducks, grouse, partridges, snipe, woodcock, quails, widgeons and teal are plentiful all over the country, and in recent years preserves have been largely stocked with pheasants. The length of time that birds of passage remain in Germany differs considerably with the different species. The stork is seen for about 170 days, the house-swallow 160, the snow-goose 260, the snipe 220. In northern Germany these birds arrive from twenty to thirty days later than in the south.

The waters of Germany abound with fish; but the genera and species are few. The carp and salmon tribes are the most abundant; after them rank the pike, the eel, the shad, the roach, the perch and the lamprey. The Oder and some of the tributaries of the Elbe abound in crayfish, and in the stagnant lakes of East Prussia leeches are bred. In addition to frogs, Germany has few varieties of Amphibia. Of serpents there are only two poisonous kinds, the common viper and the adder (Kreuzotter).

Population.—Until comparatively recent times no estimate of the population of Germany was precise enough to be of any value. At the beginning of the 19th century the country was divided into some hundred states, but there was no central agency for instituting an exact census on a uniform plan. The formation of the German Confederation in 1815 effected but little change in this respect, and it was left to the different states to arrange in what manner the census should be taken. On the foundation, however, of the German customs union, or Zollverein, between certain German states, the necessity for accurate statistics became apparent and care was taken to compile trustworthy tables. Researches show the population of the German empire, as at present constituted, to have been: (1816) 24,833,396; (1855) 36,113,644; and (1871) 41,058,792. The following table shows the population and area of each of the states included in the empire for the years 1871, 1875, 1900 and 1905:—

Area and Population of the German States.

States of the Empire. Area
English
Sq. m.		 Population. Density
per
Sq. m.
1871. 1875. 1900. 1905.
Kingdoms—
  Prussia 134,616 24,691,433 25,742,404 34,472,509 37,293,324 277.3
  Bavaria 29,292 4,863,450 5,022,390 6,176,057 6,524,372 222.7
  Saxony 5,789 2,556,244 2,760,586 4,202,216 4,508,601 778.8
  Württemberg 7,534 1,818,539 1,881,505 2,169,480 2,302,179 305.5
Grand-Duchies—
  Baden 5,823 1,461,562 1,507,179 1,867,944 2,010,728 345.3
  Hesse 2,966 852,894 884,218 1,119,893 1,209,175 407.6
  Mecklenburg-Schwerin 5,068 557,897 553,785 607,770 625,045 123.3
  Saxe-Weimar 1,397 286,183 292,933 362,873 388,095 277.8
  Mecklenburg-Strelitz 1,131 96,982 95,673 102,602 103,451 91.5
  Oldenburg 2,482 314,459 319,314 399,180 438,856 176.8
Duchies—
  Brunswick 1,418 311,764 327,493 464,333 485,958 342.5
  Saxe-Meiningen 953 187,957 194,494 250,731 268,916 282.2
  Saxe-Altenburg 511 142,122 145,844 194,914 206,508 404.1
  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 764 174,339 182,599 229,550 242,432 317.3
  Anhalt 888 203,437 213,565 316,085 328,029 369.4
Principalities—
  Schwartzburg-Sondershausen 333 75,523 76,676 80,898 85,152 255.7
  Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt 363 67,191 67,480 93,059 96,835 266.7
  Waldeck 433 56,224 54,743 57,918 59,127 136.5
  Reuss-Greiz 122 45,094 46,985 68,396 70,603 578.7
  Reuss-Schleiz 319 89,032 92,375 139,210 144,584 453.2
  Schaumburg-Lippe 131 32,059 33,133 43,132 44,992 343.4
  Lippe 469 111,135 112,452 138,952 145,577 310.4
Free Towns—
  Lübeck 115 52,158 56,912 96,775 105,857 920.5
  Bremen 99 122,402 142,200 224,882 263,440 2661.0
  Hamburg 160 338,974 388,618 768,349 874,878 5467.9
Imperial Territory—
  Alsace-Lorraine 5,604 1,549,738 1,531,804 1,719,470 1,814,564 323.8
German Empire 208,780 41,058,792 42,727,360 56,367,178 60,641,278 290.4

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The population of the empire has thus increased, since 1871, by 19,582,486 or 47.6%. The increase of population during 1895-1900 was greatest in Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Saxony, Prussia and Baden, and least in Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Waldeck. Of the total population in 1900, 54.3% was urban (i.e. living in towns of 2000 inhabitants and above), leaving 45.7% to be classified as rural. On the 1st of December 1905, of the total population 29,884,681 were males and 30,756,597 females; and it is noticeable that the male population shows of late years a larger relative increase than the female, the male population having in five years increased by 2,147,434 and the female by only 2,126,666. The greater increase in the male population is attributable to diminished emigration and to the large increase in immigrants, who are mostly males. In 1905, 485,906 marriages were contracted in Germany, being at the rate of 8.0 per thousand inhabitants. In the same year the total number of births was 2,048,453. Of these, 61,300 were stillborn and 174,494 illegitimate, being at the rate, respectively, of 3% and 8.5% of the total. Illegitimacy is highest in Bavaria (about 15%), Berlin (14%), and over 12% in Saxony, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Saxe-Meiningen. It is lowest in the Rhine Province and Westphalia (3.9 and 2.6 respectively). Divorce is steadily on the increase, being in 1904, 11.1 per 10,000 marriages, as against 8.1, 8.1, 9.3 and 10.1 for the four preceding years. The average deaths for the years 1901-1905 amounted to 1,227,903; the rate was thus 20.2 per thousand inhabitants, but the death-rate has materially decreased, the total number of deaths in 1907 standing at 1,178,349; the births for the same year were 2,060,974. In connexion with suicides, it is interesting to observe that the highest rates prevail in some of the smaller and more prosperous states of the empire—for example, in Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Saxe-Altenburg (on a three years’ average of figures), while the Roman Catholic country Bavaria, and the impoverished Prussian province of Posen show the most favourable statistics. For Prussia the rate is 20, and for Saxony it is as high as 31 per 100,000 inhabitants. The large cities, notably Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau and Dresden, show, however, relatively the largest proportion.