stroyed, 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. W