truggle is at all like the war that is carried on between
different nations. Wars are usually unnecessary and do more harm than
good, for they result in the loss of the strongest and best men. But the
struggle among the animals and plants has resulted in good, for it has
crowded out the weakest and those less fitted to live.

The struggle among all living things for food and a share of the
sunshine has covered the earth with a far greater variety than there
would otherwise be. Because so many more are born than there is room
for, they crowd and elbow each other. Many are forced to make their
homes in regions which they would not have chosen if they had been free
to do as they pleased. It is partly because of this crowding that some
of the animals which once lived on the ground became changed into birds
and made their homes in the trees. A number of the mammals found more
freedom in the water and finally became whales, seals, and walruses.
Many moved into deserts and, in learning to live with very little water,
developed curious bodies and habits. Some have found a home in the cold
North, where they have become suited to a climate which would quickly
kill those which had held their ground in the warm and moist tropical
regions.

Nature has thus filled the earth with an infinite variety of living
things, each of which is doing its part in making the world beautiful
and attractive. Man is Nature's last and most wonderful creation. He has
learned to fly like the birds, to swim under the sea like the fish, and
to harness Nature's forces and make them work for him. But man, with all
his wisdom, has too often forgotten that he is really a brother to the
lower creatures. The inhabitants of the air, the land, and the water
could, if they were able to talk, tell the most pitiful tales of man's
cruel treatment of them.

Of course we have to eat, as do all other living creatures, but for
thousands of years people have supplied their wants largely from
agriculture and from the domestic herds. Although very few of us now
have to hunt for our food, and these few are those who live far out on
the borders of newly settled regions, yet we have not forgotten the
hunting instincts of our ancestors.

Our ancestors of long ago, like the savages on the earth today, seldom
killed game unless they needed it for food. We, who think ourselves far
better than they, now kill wild life for the pleasure of the chase. The
professional hunter who s