view which we occupy is the elephant: This animal in its relations to
men is eminently peculiar, in that while it has been in an individual
way long and completely subjugated, it has never been systematically
reared in captivity. Owing, it may be, to the slow growth of these
great beasts, as well as to the immediate manner in which they submit
to their captors, it has ever been the custom to take them when adult
from the wilderness. The result is that the supply of the Asiatic
species, which alone is serviceable--the African form being apparently
too fierce for use--is now dependent on a relatively small number of
wild herds. Certain of these herds are protected by the governments of
India, but it seems as if the species were already dangerously near
the vanishing point--in a position where the invasion of some disease
or some insect enemy might deprive the world of what is, all things
considered, the most interesting of the brutes. Moreover, the failure
to rear elephants in captivity has made it impossible to essay any of
those experiments in breeding which have done so much to improve the
utility and the beauty of most subjugated forms.
If the elephants could be reared in captivity there is little reason
to doubt that with a few centuries of selection they might be made to
vary in many important ways. It is evident that the form and mental
quality of these creatures is as plastic as those features in the
other domesticated animals have been proved to be. Moreover, the
group, though it is now represented by but two recognized species, was
in comparatively recent times quite rich in varieties, a fact which
raises the presumption that the existing kinds are open to
modification by the selective process. As the elephant is not mature
until it is near thirty years old, probably not reproducing until
about that age, there is little inducement for any person to undertake
the process of breeding them in the selective way; if the task is ever
done it will have to be accomplished by government action or by that
of a society which is pledged to such tasks. If the effort to bring
the elephants into a more permanent relation with man is not made and
the race is allowed to perish, we may be sure that in the time to come
people will gravely censure us for any such neglect of the
opportunities which this world affords as would be involved in the
loss of this noble brute. It is clearly our duty to see that all such
resources are preserved for the inquirers of the future.
Among the other tropical mammals which, because they have not as yet
proved of economic value, are on account of their size and their
attractiveness to sportsmen in danger of extinction, we may note the
various species of rhinoceros, the giraffe, and the several African
forms which are akin to the horse. None of these forms have been
turned to use, none of them appear likely to be adopted by man for
the service they can do; but they are, in common with all the host
which cannot be mentioned here, of great interest to the naturalists
of our time. Their importance in the inquiries which are hereafter to
be made by our ever expanding science of life cannot be estimated. It
certainly will not be possible to overreckon it in this very practical
age. This plea for the sparing of the mammalian species in no case
needs to be made so strongly, and in no other instance is so well
entitled to a hearing, as when it is raised for the life of the
monkeys. These interesting animals because of their collateral kinship
with man afford precious evidence as to the stages of intellectual
development which is likely to be of exceeding value to students in
that field of inquiry. There is unfortunately little chance that any
of the monkeys will ever prove useful; their habits are such that they
are generally troublesome neighbors; moreover, their weakness makes it
easy to exterminate them. The result is that some species have
probably already been destroyed, and others are in conditions where
during the next century they are likely to vanish. In the animate
realm it is hard to choose the forms which are to be the most
important for the naturalists of the time to come, but it is certain
that these students will deplore the loss of the simian life and
charge us sorely if we neglect due effort for its preservation.
Although the matter before us concerns the domestication of animals, it
may be well to devote a little attention to the question of the wild
plants which need protection or which promise to afford unwon values. It
may be said that plants in general are much less likely than animals to
be disturbed by the process of bringing a country under the conditions
of civilization. With rare exceptions the individuals of each species
are so numerous that, like the insects, they escape by their numbers the
risk of the extinction of their kinds. Moreover, the ease with which
nearly all the kinds can be brought under cultivation, and the fact that
they present no self-will to be dominated, makes the task of dealing
with them, in a protective way, infinitely easier than in the case of
animals. So far as we know, there has not been an instance in which a
continental species of plant has been exterminated by man, while there
are a number of the larger animals which have been swept away apparently
by human agency, and there are many more which are on the verge of
extinction. Therefore, so far as the plant world is concerned, we may
for the present at least trust the species to their own powers to
maintain them against the rude assaults of civilization. If here and
there one is overrun by the wheels of our economic engines, something of
value to the student is lost, but the loss does not include the element
of mind which is hereafter to be the subject of so much study.
The foregoing considerations make it evident that the problem of
domestication shades into the question as to the preservation of the
life which is now on the earth, and this with a view to the advantage
which the arts, the sciences, or general culture may obtain from the
preservation of the useful, the instructive, and the beautiful things in
the realm of nature from the swift destruction which our rude
subjugation of the earth threatens to inflict. To deal with this problem
in an adequate manner we must ask ourselves what limits are to be set to
the displacement of the ancient order which is now going on. We see that
wherever civilization enters, and even where its first influences are
felt, the olden societies of nature are disturbed or broken up. All the
nobler members of these associations, the greater mammals, many of the
larger birds, and a host of the lesser forms, are expelled or destroyed.
In the condition of organic life when the supremely predatory creature
man rose to domination, the species were grouped in those vast
organizations which were of old termed faunae and florae, but which are
now better known as biological fields or provinces. In each of these
hosts the several species were, as regards their external life, so
balanced with their neighbors that the assemblage from the point of view
of these relations might well be compared with the polities or states of
man's construction. Such an organic society represents the result of a
series of trials and balances which began to be made in the immeasurably
remote past and have been continued through the geologic ages, each age
adding something to the accord. The plants give and take from the
animals; the insects are equated with the birds, and each species in
every group has set up an accord with its rivals. From time to time the
host has by the changes of sea and land been compelled to migrate,
moving this way and that to find its fit station. In these movements
species are rapidly extinguished, much as the weaker soldiers of an army
perish in forced marches. Into their places new forms hasten to take
their place, so that every position of advantage is filled. At a less
rapid rate, but perpetually, even without the change of abode, which it
is often by climatic changes compelled to make, the organic host is
slowly changing in character; old kinds give way in the endless contest
to new varieties which have managed to establish a better relation to
the environment. Still the legions press on towards the great
accomplishment of a higher and nobler life.
No one, however well he may conceive the nature and history of the
organic hosts of the earth, can hope to convey to the general reader
an adequate sense of their majesty or the wonderful part they have
played in the history of the life which has culminated in mankind. The
largest words are freighted with too little meaning, and even the
metaphors drawn from human associations fail to convey a sufficient
picture of these enduring organizations which have enabled living
beings to meet the difficulties of their long contest with this rude
world, and to win the advance they have gained. The reader will have
to tax his imagination to picture, it may be, a quarter of a million
species dwelling in the same field, each united with the other in the
method of exchange in such a way that the withdrawal of any one form
is likely in some measure to change the estate of every other. In some
cases this removal of one species means the loss of the life of many
and perhaps the better opportunity of other neighbors; again, the
influence on remoter members of the society may be so slight as to
escape detection. Yet it is doubtful if the slightest change in the
population of a biologic province can be brought about without some
effect upon all the members of the society. It is a vast, sensitive
thing, fit to be compared with the living body where every cell lives
in accord with every other of the frame.
So long as the organic hosts were in the prehuman stage the maintenance
of the accord was easily and naturally attained. Species arose and
perished, each in turn effecting a simple reconciliation with the
others, grasping only so much room and food as was necessary for its
proper support. But with the coming of man, the species which by its
swiftly progressive desires has become a host in itself, a disturbing
element was introduced into the old order. Man as a primitive savage
falls into the natural system without greatly disturbing it; but man as
a soil-tiller, in so far as he carries out his subjugative work,
utterly wrecks the ancient establishments of life. To attain his object
he has to banish from the soil nearly all the plants which originally
belonged upon it, and in their place, with or without intention, he
introduces species from other organic provinces. With the change in
plant-life necessarily goes a like, or even a greater, alteration in
the native animals. They are driven into the wilderness or, it may be,
extirpated. The reader who would obtain an idea of these changes will
do well to study the invasions of weeds or of those noxious insects
which in the economy of a civilized country may be likened to weeds.
These pests are in nearly all cases invaders which owe their successes
to the fact that our treatment of the regions they have entered has
opened vacancies in the once closed ranks of the indigenous host, into
which the foreigners are free to enter. In the fresh field they are not
likely to find enemies which by long training are especially fitted to
cope with them, and so they run riot and contest with man the gains he
has won from the ancient possessors of the land.
Of all the large questions which the consideration of the future of
man's work on this planet opens to us, there is none which now appears
to be more serious or, in its consequences, more far-reaching than
this concerning the treatment which he is to give to the old natural
order of sea and land. The very first condition of civilization is an
utter spoiling of that order, so far as the land areas are concerned,
in the fields of the richest and highest life. It is clearly
impossible to avoid this destruction over all the surface which we win
to culture. Spare as we may, the subversion of the ancient balances
and adjustments must be complete before the earth is ready for our
tillage and other modes of use. This overturning is a part of the
destiny of man. It is a characteristic of the new dispensation which
came with his progressive desires. Yet the rational quality which has
led to the mastery of man may be trusted to bring him to a point where
he will endeavor to minimize the ill effects of his actions on the
life which has been placed in his hands.
In considering the ways in which we can mitigate the evils of our rule
over organic nature, we at once see that our aim should be to preserve
all the varieties of living creatures from destruction, provided they
are not distinctly harmful to man, and this with the intention of
keeping for our successors in the inheritance all that can in any way
afford a foundation for further experiments in domestication, materials
for learned inquiries, or pleasure in contemplation. To attain this
object we cannot trust to the share of this life which can be brought
into zoological and botanical gardens, however extensive and well
managed. The only way is to make certain reservations in various parts
of the world, each containing an area and a variety of conditions great
enough to afford a safe lodgment for a true sample of the life of an
organic province. Owing to the fact that these provinces are never
sharply bounded, it would naturally be impossible to select reservations
which would in a complete manner represent all the conditions of the
biologic societies; but if properly distributed the outlying animals and
plants could in most if not all cases be introduced into one or other
of these protected fields, so that there would be little reason to fear
that any important part of the existing life would be lost.
Owing to the wise forethought of our American people, a practical
foundation of the system of national reservations has been instituted
in our so-called national parks. Although these reservations were
established to preserve to the public certain natural beauties in the
way of scenery or vegetation, or to secure the regimen of streams,
they will, if properly guarded against depredations, effect the end
which we have in view. Owing to their large area and somewhat varied
positions, these parks provide a safe refuge for a great part of the
life which belongs in the Cordilleran district of the United States.
If the method should be extended to the whole country, we should have
the peculiar satisfaction of having been the first state to institute
the system of preservation which is here suggested.
To complete a system of reservations designed to perpetuate the
aboriginal life of this country would require the institution of about a
dozen other similar natural shelters. It would not be necessary to have
these on as large a scale as that of the Yellowstone. In most cases
areas of from ten to twenty thousand acres in extent would, if well
guarded, suffice to give refuge to the animals and plants of the field
in which it lay. The selection of these refuges would demand much
consideration. In general, it may be said that they need to include at
least two on the Atlantic coast, which might also be fitted for the use
of marine birds as breeding places, one on the northern part of the
coast of Maine, and another in southern Florida. The latter might serve
as well for the protection of the turtles which resort to that shore to
lay their eggs. Similar coast parks should be established on the shores
of the Pacific. Yet other closed areas would be needed in the interior,
the evidently desirable fields lying in the region about the headwaters
of the Mississippi, in the Adirondacks, in the mountains of North
Carolina, in the lower part of the Mississippi delta, in Arizona, and at
least two points in Alaska; one of these should afford a place of refuge
for the persecuted fur seals and another for the musk-ox.
At first sight it may seem to be a simple matter to accommodate the
wild life of a country on a relatively small piece of land. So far,
indeed, as the plants, the insects, and the lesser mammalian life are
concerned, an area of a few hundred acres will serve very well for
their safe harborage, but when it comes to protecting the larger birds
and mammals we see how easily the natural balance of life is by some
chance influence destroyed. A capital instance of this difficulty
which arises when preservation is essayed on small areas has recently
been forced on my attention. In Dukes County, Massachusetts, there is
the vanishing remnant of an interesting bird known from the island to
which it is limited as the Martha's Vineyard prairie chicken. It is
closely related to its better known Western kinsman, yet is a distinct
variety. Although the form has apparently developed on the island and
once abounded there, it has dwindled in numbers until there are but
few surviving. In the hope of providing a safe refuge for the remnant,
I have for a number of years stopped all shooting on a tract of a
thousand or two acres which is well fitted to supply them with food
and shelter. As they still dwindled, it seemed probable that the foxes
were harming them. This appeared the more likely for the reason that
the fox is not a native of the island, but was introduced a few years
ago by some reckless experimenters. These marauders were cleared away
without good results. Further inquiry made it apparent that the real
enemy of these birds was the feralized domestic cat which has gone
wild from the households, especially from the many homesteads that
have been abandoned. This creature has bred in great numbers and is
now threatening the existence of all birds that rear their broods upon
the ground. It is hardly possible to exterminate them, for the reason
that they are wary, and any systematic hunting of them would prove
exceedingly disturbing to the very timid birds. The result is that
nearly all these birds have left my land for certain plains near by
which are covered with scrub oaks and where there is too little ground
life to attract the cats. In that region, though it has an area of
about thirty thousand acres, the food is scanty; the prairie chickens
dwelling there are likely to perish for lack of the rose-hips which,
in the hill country they have been forced to desert, served to
maintain them at times when the ground was covered with snow.
The lesson which may be drawn from the experience above stated is to
the effect that it is necessary to have a protected field of
sufficient area, and in the proper conditions to keep the balance of
life which arises from the exchange of relations between species in
their normal state. Even in ideal reservations where all invasions are
excluded, we should have to expect that from time to time certain
forms would disappear, their place perhaps being taken by new species
which would arise. Such is the manner of the great procession of life.
Probably at least twenty and perhaps a hundred times as many species
as are now living on the earth have perished from it, and before the
unimaginable goal is attained as many others may pass away. Our task
with the refuges would be to keep the death of the specific
inhabitants to the natural and wholesome rate that is determined by
the endless struggle for existence.
It is impracticable at the present time to devise a scheme for refuge
stations in other countries than our own; it is evident, however,
that these would have to be numerous and widely distributed. A glance
at a map showing the political distribution of the lands will make it
evident, however, that within the holdings of the British, French,
German, Dutch, and Russian governments there are large areas which
might, without evident loss of considerable economic values,
immediate or prospective, be turned to such uses, and that these
reservations would probably include nearly all that would be
required to preserve the most important samples of the primitive
life. Some of them, as for instance those intended to retain the
large tropical animals in their natural state, would have to be as
imperial in their areas as the Yellowstone Park, but these would lie
in realms which have no present value to our own race and are
scantily inhabited by the indigenous peoples.
It is easy to see that the proposed world-wide system of wilderness
stations in which the native life should be preserved from the
destructive influences of man's assault upon it could not be brought
about without international cooperation and with a considerable
expenditure of money both for the foundation and maintenance of the
establishments; but, as before remarked, the idea of public
reservations of this nature is one which immediately and strongly
commended itself to the people of this country and has led their
representatives to set aside for such use lands which in the
aggregate amount to a larger area than some of our sister states.
The same motive is seen in the action of the State of Massachusetts,
which a few years ago created a Board of Trustees of Public
Reservations, a corporate body authorized to hold in perpetuity
lands which are intended to serve the public for pleasure and
instruction. The recent rapid extension of the park systems
appertaining to the cities of this country and Europe is a further
illustration of the same motive which makes for the object which we
desire. It therefore seems not unreasonable to hope that very soon
we may find the governments of the greater nations willing to go
forward on the line of advance in which our own has so well led the
way. At the right time the United States could probably do much to
further the matter by asking for international action in this
admirable work. There is hardly any undertaking which would afford a
fairer chance for friendly cooperation among the great states than
this which looks forward to the good of the time to come.
While looking forward to the establishment of a system of sanctuaries
which may serve to protect examples of the present life of all the
lands, it is also well to consider what can be done by local
authorities and by individuals in the same direction. The numerous
zoological and botanical gardens which have been established in
different parts of the world have in part the same motive that is to be
embodied in the larger institutions which we would see founded; they
seek to preserve the interesting and instructive animals and plants,
and in some cases contrive to perpetuate the kinds. The trouble is that
their main purpose is to make a striking show, one that will attract
the eye and lead to profit of an immediate kind. If these institutions
could be persuaded to add to their former exhibitions grounds designed
for the maintenance of the natural order, true wildernesses, where the
native life would find a fit place of abode and where it would be
protected from the ravages of man or from accident, a certain gain
would be made; at least the masses of our city people, who have now
come to control legislation in the great states, would be brought to
see the beauties of the primitive conditions which they now rarely
have a chance to behold. Yet more might be accomplished if men of
wealth could be induced to turn their generous spirit towards this
object. There are many parts of this country where reservations are
most desirable and where the price of land is so low that an area of
thirty thousand acres could be acquired for that number of dollars. A
capital of one hundred thousand dollars would, at the present rates of
interest, afford the revenue necessary for the pay of a keeper and
half a dozen guards, a sufficient force to maintain a due watchfulness
against depredations. Moreover, the use of such land as an asylum
would not prevent a careful exploitation of its timber resources,
which in many cases would give a sufficient return to provide for the
policing expenses, as well as for incidental costs incurred in
bringing upon the land species from the neighboring country which it
might be desirable to introduce. At a cost of not more than a million
dollars it would be possible to secure and maintain a well-chosen
system of guarded wildernesses which would preserve the
characteristics of the original plant and animal life in all the
region of this country lying to the east of the Rocky Mountains.