The Earth as Modified by Human ActionMarsh, George P. (George Perkins)
History
The Earth as Modified by Human Action
Marsh, George P. (George Perkins)
Conservation of natural resources; Human geography; Nature -- Effect of human beings on; Physical geography
Civilization is so intimately associated with certain inferior forms of
animal life, if not dependent on them, that cultivated man has never
failed to accompany himself, in all his migrations, with some of these
humble attendants. The ox, the horse, the sheep, and even the
comparatively useless dog and cat, as well as several species of
poultry, are voluntarily transferred by every emigrant colony, and they
soon multiply to numbers far exceeding those of the wild genera most
nearly corresponding to them. [Footnote: The rat and the mouse, though
not voluntarily transported, are passengers by every ship that sails for
a foreign port, and several species of these quadrupeds have,
consequently, much extended their range and increased their numbers in
modern times. From a story of Heliogabalus related by Lampridius, Hist.
Aug. Scriptores, ed. Casaubon, 1690, p. 110, it would seem that mice at
least were not very common in ancient Rome. Among the capricious freaks
of that emperor, it is said that he undertook to investigate the
statistics of the arachnoid population of the capital, and that 10,000
pounds of spiders (or spiders' webs--for aranea is equivocal) were
readily collected; but when he got up a mouse-show, he thought ten
thousand mice a very fair number. Rats are not less numerous in all
great cities; and in Paris, where their skins are used for gloves, and
their flesh, it is whispered, in some very complex and equivocal dishes,
they are caught by legions. I have read of a manufacturer who contracted
to buy of the rat-catchers, at a high price, all the rat-skins they
could furnish before a certain date, and failed, within a week, for want
of capital, when the stock of peltry had run up to 600,000.
Civilization has not contented itself with the introduction of domestic
animals alone. The English sportsman imports foxes from the continent,
and Grimalkin-like turns them loose in order that he may have the
pleasure of chasing them afterwards.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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