Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-07-28
4ancaster fntelligellrer.
EvEN'a. JULY 20. 1880.

8uCd8IEI 1lllEllt4EltlEIs
WEDNESDAY EvEN'o. JULY %. 1890.
The Destruction OF Game Food.
So long as America continued in the oc-
cupation OF the aborigines, the order Of
nature was apparently but little disturbed.
The buffalo and deer, the wild fowl and
turkeys, furnished abundant food to the
savages without serious encroachment
upon the fertility of nature. Iu savage
life there appears to be no wanton or un.
necessary destruction of the natural
means of support. It was reserved for the
civilized white man to carry ON want0n
war against the bounty of nature, and to
kill and destroy, without thought or
study of those imperative laws under which
nature holds i'm trust the food supply
of man. From the first settlement OF the
country, the process of eradicating and an
initiating the useful animals, birds and
fishes natural to the country has been car
ried on with an energy and success but too
characteristic of the Saxon race. Large
tracts of land have been entirely depopu-
lated of their animals and useful birds.
The buffalo On his native plains has be-
come an object of raro curiosity. Deer
arc limited to the remoter mountain ranges
or extensive tracts of barren woods. The
wild fowl, which swarmed in New Eng
Land during the first settlement of the
country, and for a long time afterwards,
have almost disappeared. The last wild
turkey was killed in Massachusetts, nearly
half q century ago. There is probably no
sportsman living who has killed grouse
on Martha's Vineyard, the last refuge in
Al - ~ III hsvAN
Pl0ver still migrate, though in diminished
far North to their winter homo in the
South, but they carefully avoid the no; tn
eastern coasts. No one in this generation
has seen wild swan alighting on the
waters of Massachusetts,. They once
abOunded there. Even tho wild geese find
no resting place here. but are expelled as
il they were trampS and vagabOnds.
Man DestrOys Nature EcOnomises.
Mr.. Marsh, in his most interesting and
instructive book, Man and Nature"
shows how spendtllrift man has, by his
ignorance and neglect of the laws Of
nature, ruined for the purposes of habita-
ton large portions Of his fair inheritance
on the surface of the earth. The shores
of the Mediterranean exhibit to-day, in
many places, desOlatiOn not due to pOliti-
cal or national decay, but to mans reck-
less abuse and wantOn destructiveness.
Although this may he excused to some OK
tent by the ignorance of former days-fOr
study of the relations of nature to man is
of very recent date-there can be no ex-
cuse, in our moro enlightened time, when
knowledge Of all kinds is 50 accessible,
for not only abusing inanimate nature, but
for expelling from the earth so many OF
our living fellow inhabitants. We are not
only forewarned by our present knowledge
but we have reason to believe that earnest
study would in a few years reveal to us
many of the now secret and hidden opera
tiOns of nature. We know, for example,
little of the mysterious arrangements by
which nature disposes, after their
brief life, of the countless birds
and animals born into the world. Mary
millions are born annually as many mil
lions must annually die. We see the
smaller birds occasionally seized and de-
voured by the birds of prey we know that
the fox, the weasel, the wildcat, and the
mink live largely on birds; but this does
n 1t account for their mortality. How rare
ly we come across dead birds or animals
in our walks through the woods and fields
Nature is the most decOrOus of sections.
She lays her countless dead to rest in the
bosom of the earth noiselessly, and with no
trace to offend our senses or our feel
ings. Perpetual birth, youth and reno
vation are her monuments in her everlast-
ing cemetery. Man lives surrounded by
her living forms: she gives him little or
no hint of the mortality of her children. 1t
is from his own lot and his imperfect deal
ings with his own decay that man derives
his sad lessons and painful associations
with mortality.
As We rarely know individuals in animal
or bird life. these races seem in natures
arrangement immortal. The spring brings
them to us with the certainty and fresh
ness of new leaves and flowers. We see
the leaves and flowers decay but, as a
general rule, We have little conciousness
and scarcely any knowledge Of the death
and decay OF animated nature. Could we
know this, we could greatly enlarge our
power Cf dealing with an animal race, with
every probability of increasing their num-
bcrs and the average duration OF their
William Mnot, in International
Rerier for august, 1880.