Coville[1] says: "To a traveler passing across our southwestern desert region it is a matter of great wonder how the Indians of that country contrive to subsist. The question is not what furnishes the best food, but what will furnish us any food."
On the upper Ucayale the savage has not been able to compete with the terrible forces of nature. Animal life is not plentiful, fish are not abundant in the streams, and the power of the native to penetrate the forests is limited owing to the tangled mass of undergrowth.[2]
The same story, only in a different element, would be told by the Fuegians, who, having exhausted the food supply of one cove or inlet, are compelled to go across an intervening bluff to reach the next source of food. For this purpose they have invented a canoe of bark which can be taken to pieces and transported over the mountain on the backs of men and put together again at the next inlet. On the contrary, there were areas in Arctic America, in Bering sea, on the Pacific coast, in the rivers of southern United States, in the Antilles, and on the Amazon, where food was so abundant at certain seasons that the natives were content to live "from hand to mouth." In such cases the great abundance would be an impediment to the inventive faculty, and in the procuring of such supplies the natives did not practice their greatest ingenuity.
DIVISIONS OF ZOÖTECHNY
The study of zoötechny will include the following chapters: I, American Indian zoölogy, or ethnozoölogy in America. II, Exploitive zoötechny—the activities associated with the capture and domestication of animals. III, Elaborative zoötechny—the activities practiced on the animal after capture. IV, Ultimate products of zoötechny and their relation to human happiness. V, Social organizations and coöperations. VI, The progress of
