more. A few examples will prove this. The rytina, a marine herbivorous mammal, similar to the still existing manabee and dugong, the great auk, the dodo, and the solitaire, have all become extinct within comparatively recent times. The former, a native of Behring Sea, reached a length of thirty-five feet, and, from its cumbrousness, fell a ready prey to its Russian enemies, who slaughtered it so mercilessly that in less than a century what might have afforded a permanent store of food, through all time to come in a region where food is scarce, disappeared entirely from existence. The three others, birds with imperfect wings, unable to fly, but able to cope with their environment until the advent of man, were similarly hunted down by "those who go down to the sea in ships," and are now known only by pictures, bones, and relics. The gigantic moa birds of New Zealand have had a similar history, but in this case the Maori, instead of the Aryan, is responsible. Not only bones, but feathers and eggs, of these gigantic birds, some of the largest of which attained a height of from twelve to fourteen feet, have been found, and the natives have traditions of the moa-hunts in which they used to engage, surrounding the poor birds, and, with loud yells, driving them into a lake, where they could be killed from canoes without a chance to resist.

Many of the large quadrupeds now existing are destined, at the present rate of destruction, to complete disappearance, at least in their wild state, in a few generations. If the disappearance were confined to the larger carnivores, the loss could be endured. Mankind would probably prefer, on the whole, to view the lion, the tiger, and the bear in the safe retreat of a menagerie, rather than in their native wilds. But the extinction of the African elephant and the American bison will be a loss to mankind. Ruthlessly killed wherever met with, partly for the sheer pleasure of killing, partly for the sake of tusks that were once his defense, specialized for his own use, the elephant stands no chance in the struggle unless man have mercy. The bison once ranged from 62° to 25° north latitude, or from Great Slave Lake, in the north, to the north-eastern provinces of Mexico; while westward it extended to the Blue Mountains and the Sierra Nevada; and eastward it passed the Mississippi, and even the Alleghanies. Now it is limited to two small areas-one in western Kansas, north-western Texas, and the Indian Territory; the other about, and to the northward of, the sources of the Yellowstone. "At this present rate of decrease," says Allen, "it will certainly become wholly extinct during the next quarter of a century."

The elephant-seal (Macrorhinus proboscideus) was once common along the coast of Upper and Lower California, and abounded in many localities in the southern hemisphere, between 35° and 55° south latitude; but it was so persistently hunted, for the sake of its oil, that it disappeared almost entirely from our coasts, and became very rare even at Kerguelen Land, Heard's Island, and the Crozets. So scarce did it become that the chase was almost relinquished, and the result of only five undisturbed seasons was that in December, 1874, it was, according to J. H. Kidder, "very numerous" at the Crozet Islands.

In 1879 a schooner from San Francisco found nineteen of these animals on the coast of Lower California. At once the crew killed all but seven of the youngest, and they think it probable that the crew of another vessel killed the remainder.

The sea-elephant is the largest of the true seals, the males equaling, or exceeeding, the almost equally unfortunate walrus in size. The facts given above tend to show that but a small amount of intelligent forbearance would enable this creature to again become abundant.

Even if the sheer waste of life indulged in by man for his whims, his pleasures, or his passions, were put an end to, and his destruction limited to what is required for food, it is certain that, without protection, and, in some cases, assistance, at the season of reproduction, many species required by him for food would not be able to keep up their numbers. Man recognizes this fact in the case of all such species of plants and animals as are immediately under his care, but usually ignores it in the case of undomesticated species, however useful they may be to him.

He is careful not to slay the cow with calf, or the ewe with lamb, but takes the fish when full of spawn, and gives neither seal nor whale a fair chance to reproduce its kind. He appears, in many instances, to have actually a notion that God will keep up the supply for his benefit, in spite of his efforts to put an end to it.

Yet the necessity for a "close time" for certain animals is beginning to be recognized. Already it is decreed, and, to a certain extent, observed, in the case of such beasts and birds as are denominated "game," and also with one of the most valuable kinds of food-fishes—the salmon. What is done is but the beginning of what will have to be done in this direction, if the supply is to be kept up.

That portion of our food which is derived from the land area of the globe is, in this respect, far more favorably situated than that derived from the water area. Although, unless

care be taken to prevent it, such wild species | of quadrupeds and birds as are useful to man are doomed to early extinction, yet at least he retains within his hands a less varied supply in his domesticated animals and plants.

But man's power over the water area is, and probably ever will be, more limited than over the land. The depths of the ocean are beyond his sway. The most that he can do is to traverse its surface with more or less safety, and to extend his rule around its shores. He cannot enter in and dwell there. The waters directly under his rule are only lakes, streams, and the borders of larger bodies of water. Yet his power, even over the harvest of the ocean, is, if intelligently directed, quite considerable. As animal life in the ocean is under different conditions from that of the land, depending for respiration not upon the oxygen of the air, but upon that in the water, and for food almost entirely upon other animals, since plant life does not exist at great depths, man's efforts must be principally directed to keeping up the stock of animal food needed by the species upon which he feeds. That is to say, while upon the land he must keep up the supply of food-plants for the animals he feeds upon or requires, in the ocean his task is to keep up the supply of animal food required by species useful to him. To this end, a knowledge of the entire life-history, food, habits, and distribution of all kinds of marine organisms is needed, and this work is slowly, but surely, being carried on by unobtrusive workers scattered over the civilized world. When a full knowledge of these things is obtained, it will often be found quite feasible to protect any species in the reproduction of its

kind.

This protection can be exercised in two ways. First, by ordaining a "close time," during which it shall be unlawful to catch the protected species; second, by artificial breeding. Most mammals and birds have a limited number of young, and, although it is possible to hatch the eggs of the latter artificially, yet, as the bird herself sits upon the eggs, the advantage is doubtful. But with fishes the case is different. The eggs, or ova, laid may often be tens or even hundreds of thousands in number, yet the species does not increase in numbers, even when man's hand does not tax it heavily. As the mass of ova is fertilized after it is laid, by the squeezing over it of the milt of the male, a large proportion is never fertilized at all. As the eggs are deposited upon the bottom of the stream or sea-bed, currents and storms, and the accidental passing of objects over the spot, cause many to be washed away and destroyed. Still larger quantities are eaten. Every predatory fish is on the

watch for ova, and the little fishes get even with the large ones by devouring their spawn. Even the parent fish will, in many cases, devour her own offspring.

All this has been successfully remedied in the case of salmon, trout, and a few other fishes, and can as well be remedied in other cases. The ripe ova are gently pressed through the oviduct of the female, which is then released. The ripe milt of the male is pressed out over the ova, and carefully mixed, to insure fertilization. The ova are cared for in tanks, constructed to suit the habits of the species, and, after hatching, are placed in the water to take their chance. In this way, out of about sixteen thousand eggs yielded by a salmon of twenty pounds in weight, fifteen thousand may, according to our Fish Commissioners, be made to produce fish.

Apply the same ratio to other fish, and we shall begin to see how much can be done toward increasing the harvest of the waters, by at the same time supplying fish and finny food for fishes. Were this process followed methodically throughout the world with all the most useful species, the increase, if destructive agents were kept down, would be limited only by the power of the ocean to supply life.

The invertebrate habitants of the waters, some useful directly to us, all useful as food for fishes, can also be, to a great extent, protected. Though a "close time" can hardly be extended to them, the increase of the species can be cared for in the same way as is that of oysters -by beds, pounds, or preserves, within which they can multiply, free from enemies.

The crustacea (crabs, lobsters, shrimps) need no artificial fertilizing, since, as in birds and mammals, the ova are fertilized before extrusion, but they may advantageously be bred in ponds.

When those regions of the earth now held by savage, barbarous, or semi- civilized tribes falls into the hands of nations which have among them a few who study the actual book of lifeand the time, judging by recent acquisitions, is not very far distant -we may hope that the protection of a "close time," during which they may bear and suckle their young, will be extended to such mammals as the bison, the elephant, the walrus, the elephant-seal, and the whale, and that all birds, except such as are notoriously injurious to man's interests, will be granted a term in which they can hatch their young in security.

Although plant life in general is essential to animal life, there are many plants which are deleterious in their nature, and more which are useless from man's point of view, since they do

The

prey are driven to the recesses of forest or mountain, or are exterminated, while the smaller are kept down with shot-guns and traps. It is not improbable that the only lions and tigers of some future generation will be those bred in captivity.

The class of fungi, so protean in its forms and qualities, not only furnishes species which are poisonous to animals, but it also contains forms which live upon and often destroy animal organisms. Insects and fishes are frequently killed by molds, which multiply within them to such an extent that they are forced to succumb. The death of the former is often no loss in itself, so far as mankind is concerned, but the dead insects, filled with fungoid spores, are themselves a source of danger.

a

A glance in a fish tank will but too frequently reveal the ravages of fungi. Patches of mold may be seen upon the sides of the fishes miniature forest borne about with them as they swim. These are mischievous enough, but below them are still lower plants-agents of putrefaction—the vibrios, bacteria, and spirales, those mysteriously appearing living particles, which have been the mainstay of the believers in spontaneous generation. Many of these are the sure accompaniments of certain fevers, and in some cases the origin of the disease has been traced to them. While some doctors still deny this, and others as strenuously maintain that all diseases are caused by parasitic living cells, the germs of which are to be found in the air, the facts point to at least its partial truth, tending to show that while some diseases are caused by living agents, others are more probably caused by some alteration in the secretions of the body, induced by external causes.

In the words of Dr. Wythe: "Every agency of nature outside of the bodily organism, and every activity of body and of mind within the living structure, is capable of becoming a cause of disease, as soon as it disturbs the normal current of life, so that the number of causes is practically unlimited."

The protection of flocks, herds, and poultry from quadrupeds and ravenous birds is tolerably well effected by mankind, at least in civilized countries. The problem has to a great extent been solved, as it will have to be solved over the entire face of the globe, if population

But the most dangerous enemies of ourselves and of our animals are not the vertebrata, but the myriad forms of insects, and those protean organisms, the internal worms. The insect has things very much his own way in the worldhe is victor over the vertebrate, though worsted individually, by sheer numbers, power of reproduction, and ability to elude search. The tsetse fly, which renders large portions of Africa impassable by horses, oxen, and dogs, but does not attack man; gnats, fleas, lice, bugs, mosquitos, black-flies, ox-flies, the Asilus crabroniformes, are so many free parasites, living upon the bodies of animals and men, and for the most part sucking their blood; the chigo, free when young, is when adult parasitic on man and on his animals; the ichneumon larvæ feed upon those of the lepidoptera, and do not spare the silk-worm because it is useful to man; the curious young of the blister-beetles, known as triungulins, cling to bees and other hymenopterous insects, and thus obtain access to their nests and thrive on their honey; the gad-flies pass their early stages within mammals. These are but a few of the insects that exist upon other animals. Among the arachnida the lower forms (Acarida) are both troublesome and dangerous. Most mammals have their peculiar species of acari; the horse has two, which give rise to skin affections; man has the itch from another, bees are killed by another; ticks (Ixodes) attack dogs, sheep, and other quadrupeds, living free on the bushes until some mammal passes; birds swarm with acari. The crustacea, insects of the water, do for fishes and cetacea what the insects and arachnids do for birds and mammals, thus taking a sort of revenge for the consumption of free crustacea by larger animals. The isopoda live in the mouths and among the gills of fishes, taking toll from the food, while some penetrate the skin, and others prefer to live beneath the carapace of of higher crustaceans; the female lerneans, free when young, attach themselves by the mouth, when older, to the eyes, fins, or other parts of fishes, lose their limbs, and become swollen masses ending in two ovisacs, bearing upon their bodies the minute males, who retain their limbs and senses; while barnacles fix themselves on whales.

The internal worms are almost endless in their forms and in their metamorphoses. The

filariæ, free when young, are introduced with food-or, more often, water-into the bodies of molluscs, fishes, amphibians, birds, and mammals, where they multiply exceedingly; and trematode-worms (flukes-Monostomum and Distomum), pass their entire lives as parasites, changing their hosts and changing their shape, and frequenting fishes, mammals, birds, and other animals. The whale, the sturgeon, the herring, the seal, the sheep, all are troubled with distomes in the liver, and man is far from being free from their presence.

Tape-worms abound in the digestive organs of almost every class in the animal kingdom, and their immature forms traverse the tissues, and become what are known as "cestoid" worms within such organs as the brain, the liver, the kidney, or the eye. The tape-worms of herbivorous animals pass their young stages in the water or on plants; those of carnivores inhabit their prey, and only become adult tape-worms when eaten by proper species. These various parasites, and many other forms, do not always kill. On the contrary, a healthy animal will often carry about many of them. Yet we have but to mention the dreaded trichina (a nematode, or round worm), and the tape-worm, to prove that they have the power to injure man. There can be no doubt that an excess of even the comparatively innocent kinds injures the host, or that a weakly organism may fail beneath its internal burden.

Now that the life-history of most of these dreaded parasites is known, it is possible to avoid their presence, and to this end the eating of uncooked or partially cooked food, and the drinking of water that has not been boiled, must alike be avoided. Heat kills the young of worms, as it does germs of all kinds; and, when we consider how abundant the ova of these parasites are, we may doubt whether man does not, to a great extent, owe his supremacy and increase of numbers to the fact that he alone, of all animals, subjects his food to heat. Good cookery, therefore, is, even from this point of view alone, a large part of the science of life.

The carnivores of the ocean, the sharks and rays, and the toothed cetacea, play havoc among our food-fishes, and need to be checked in their increase. This can be best done by utilizing them. Sharks furnish oil-one species is taken for its oil on the coast of California. Sharks' fins are a delicacy in China, and white races eat some of the rays. The flesh of sharks and rays would furnish good and cheap food for the poor.

When man needs any animal for food or in the arts, its numbers soon decrease unless he takes steps to prevent it, and, in the case of the sharks and rays, as well as of the dolphins, the decrease is a benefit to man, permitting more useful species to increase.

W. N. LOCKINGTON.

A friendly Kiel critic of my first article (upon Groth, Ditmarsch, and Plattdeutsch, in the February number of THE CALIFORNIAN) seems to think that there is a thread of half apology running through it in behalf of the Low German, and ascribes it, in a charitable spirit, to my wish to overcome the supercilious "pride of the English race," toward a kindred but humbler tongue-a poor cousin, as it were. It may be that there was such a tinge unconsciously given to the essay; but if any prejudice exists in the American mind as to Low German (a premise I do not wish to concede), it has assuredly sprung from exotic seeds planted there by fastidious High Germans. There is a class of Germans who, in discussing Plattdeutsch

| with Americans, leave an incorrect impression as to the social status of the less cultivated tongue, not so much in the facts they offer, as in the impression left, to be derived from those facts. There is still another class, who (not being quite at ease as to their own educational ground) fancy that any suspicion of the platt in their language would be a social blot-a proof of vulgarity. Of this order was that lady, introduced in a modern German novel, who assumed to be an oracle in culture by reason of being the daughter of a professor, and who reproved her docile husband for saying hippodrom, instead of hippotraum, "because drom was so platt!" No language or dialect is in itself mean; nor can any dialect beget