Wild Life Conservation In Theory And Practice - Lectures Delivered Before The Forest School Of Yale University - 1914 - Paperback

PREFACE If it is worth while to preserve the wild life of our country, and of the world at large, then it is the duty of the university educators of America to take up their share of the white mans burden. The training of a grand army of embryologists and morphologists is all very well but what about saving from annihilation the species that our zoologists are studying VVhich is the more important the saving of the pinnated grouse from extermination, or studying the embryology of a clutch of grouse eggs What is needed-and now demanded-of professors and teachers in all our universities, colleges, normal schools and high schools is vigorous and persistent teaching of the ways and means that can successfully be employed in the wholesale manufacture of public sentiment in behalf of the rational and effective protection of wild life. Thus far the educators of this country as a class and a mass have not done a hundredth part of their duty toward the wild life of the United States and Alaska. Let him who doubts this very sweeping statement ask the next young university or college graduate that he meets how much he has learned in his university about the practical business of pro vi PREFACE tecting wild life. Let every graduate ask himself how much he has learned in the classroom of this highly important branch of zoological work. The course of lectures now published in this volume represents the awakening of Yale University, through the efforts of Professor James W. Toumey, Dean of the Forestry School. The publication of this volume by the University Press may well be accepted as a contribution to a cause. It is hoped by those who have made possible this lecture course and this volume thatthis presentation may arouse other educators in our great institutions of learning to take up their shares of the common burden of conserving our wild life from the destructive forces that so long have been bearing very heavily upon it. It is not right that this enormous task should be left to a few toilersand fighters-merely because they have, as a matter of conscience, dedicated themselves to this work. W. T. H. University Heights, New York City, August 15, 1914. CONTENTS PAGE Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Chapter I. The Extinction and Preservation of Valuable Wild Life . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 11. The Economic Value of Our Birds . 44 Chapter 111. The Legitimate Use of Game Birds and Mammals . . . . . . . . . 84 Chapter IV Animal Pests and Their Rational Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . l23 Chapter V. The Duty and Power of the Citizen in Wild Life Protection . . . . . . . 161 FREDER C I . C W ALCOTT Chapter VI. Private Game Preserves as Factors in Conservation . . . . . . . . . . . 195 A Bibliography of More Recent Works on Wild Birds, with Special Reference to Game Preserves and the Protection and Propagation of Game . R23 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . R31 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A LESSON IN BIRDP ROTECTIO . N . . . . . Frontispiece Facing Page THEK IND O F DEER-HUNTITNHGA TM EANES XTERMINATIO 2 N 8 CHAPTER VI. A GROUP O F DEER . . . . . . ., . . Frontispiece Facing Page FEEDIN T G H E WILDG EESE ., . . . . . . . 198 FIVEO CLOCK P . M. . . . . . . . . . . . 204 WINTERQ UARTERS . . . . . . . . . . . ...