WILDLIFE IN AMERICAN CULTURE 
This state of doubt about the fundamentals of human 
population behavior lends exceptional interest, and excep- 
tional value, to the only available analogue: the higher 
animals. Errington, among others, has pointed out the cul- 
tural value of these animal analogues. For centuries this 
rich library of knowledge has been inaccessible to us because 
we did not know where or how to look for it. Ecology is now 
teaching us to search in animal populations for analogies to 
our own problems. By learning how some small part of the 
biota ticks, we can guess how the whole mechanism ticks. 
The ability to perceive these deeper meanings, and to ap- 
j praise them critically, is the woodcraft of the future. 
To sum up, wildlife once fed us and shaped our culture. 
,,.It still yields us pleasure for leisure hours, but we try to 
reap that pleasure by modem machinery and thus destroy 
part of its value. Reaping it by modem mentality would 
yield not only pleasure, but wisdom as well. 
 
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