The U.S. Fauna (2108)

The animal life of the continental United States includes the white-tailed deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, black bear, and others. Some important fur-bearers are red and grey foxes, mink, snow-shore hare, various squirrels and others.

The great destruction which early Europeans brought about in the vegetation of North America was followed by great changes in the native animal world. Such animals as the bison and the wolf are quit few today. Among the birds, one can hardly find the passenger pigeon in America at the present time.

North America's grasslands were once filled with great numbers of prong-horns. Today they are few. It is one of the most truly American of all the animals found on this continent. It has never left North America. It is a far older animal than the bison. The pronghorn has physical characteristics of both the antelope and the goat. The running animal reaches the speed of 55 miles (90 km) an hour.

However, animals like coyotes and opossums have remained and they are found now even in greater numbers than before the coming of the Europeans. Different food, especially from the plants man grows, is the reason for this. Opossum is the only North American animal which has a bag in which its children are carried. The babies get into the bag after their birth. The opossum knows how it must act under different conditions. It is able "to play possum". It can make use of almost any dark hole to hide. Its food is mainly of fruit and berries. When it finds too many other animals around, it can live on any other food or change its way of life. The opossum of today is larger than it was 80 million years ago. It has a tail which can work as a fifth hand in the tree.

A few centuries ago, animals were an important part of the economy. So they were, for example, for the early colonists. At that time animals gave food and clothes. Wild animals were many because hunters' weapons were primitive and the number of hunters was not very great. But as time went on the weapon became better. Such animals as the reindeer, the elk, and especially the beaver and the sable were killed in great numbers. Later, as settlements reached across the Great Plains, many bison were destroyed.

Though animal life in North America was rich, there were no animals which man has domesticated, except the dog. Wild horses which Europeans first saw in the Great Plains were born of the horses brought by the earliest colonists. Cows, sheep and pigs were also brought to North America from the Old World. Not one of them was native.