Chapter X: Peacock-Shooting, 326 (3)

Thus here we are able to lay our finger on the exact dates when a large and rapacious species of animal actually became extinct so far as the British Isles are concerned. And if the species had been confined in its geographical limits, as many other species of animals are, to one group of islands, we should know the precise date of its absolute extinction.

The Beaver was once an inhabitant of British rivers. Its remains are found in Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, and elsewhere, associated with the other Mammalia of the fresh-water deposits and caves, but not in any abundance. No record of its actual existence, however, in these counties exists, nor anywhere else but in Wales and Scotland, whose mountain streams and rugged ravines afforded it shelter till after the Norman Conquest. It was very rare even then, and for a hundred years before; for the laws of Howel Dda, the Welsh king, who died in 948, in determining the value of peltry, fix the price of the beaver's skin at a hundred and twenty pence, when the skins of the stag, the wolf, the fox, and the otter, were worth only eightpence each, that of the white weasel or ermine at twelvepence, and that of the marten, at twenty-four pence. The appropriate epithet of Broad-tail (Llostllyddan) was given it by the Welsh. Giraldus Cambrensis, who travelled through Wales in 1188, gives, in his Itinerary, a short account of the beaver, but states that the river Teivy in Cardiganshire, and one other river in Scotland, were the only places in Great Britain, where it was then found. In all probability it did not long survive that century, for no subsequent notice of it as a British animal is extant. Tradition, however, still preserves the remembrance of its presence in those indelible records, names of places. "Two or three waters in the Principality," says Pennant, "still bear the name of _Llyn yr afangc_,--the Beaver Lake.... I have seen two of their supposed haunts: one in the stream that runs through Nant Francon; the other in the river Conwy, a few miles above Llanrwst; and both places, in all probability, had formerly been crossed by beaver-dams."

If, as naturalists of the highest eminence believe, there is specific difference between the beaver of Europe and that of America, then we may say that our species is fast passing away from the earth. A few colonies yet linger along the banks of the Danube, the Weser, the Rhone and the Euphrates, but they consist of few individuals, ever growing fewer; and the value of their fur exciting cupidity, they cannot probably resist much longer the exterminating violence of man.

The causes which led to the extinction of these animals in our islands are then obvious, and are thus playfully touched by the late James Wilson:--"The beaver might have carried on business well enough, in his own quiet way, although frequently incommoded by the love of peltry on the part of a hat-wearing people; but it is clear that no man with a small family and a few respectable farm servants, could either permit a large and hungry wolf to be continually peeping at midnight through the keyhole of the nursery, or allow a brawny bruin to snuff too frequently under the kitchen door (after having hugged the watch-dog to death) when the servant-maids were at supper. The extirpation then of at least two of these quondam British species became 'a work of necessity and mercy,' and might have been tolerated even on a Sunday, (between sermons,) especially as naturalists have it still in their power to study the habits of similar wild beasts, by no means yet extinct, in the neighbouring countries of France and Germany."[61]

Perhaps the example of recent extinction most popularly known is that of the Dodo, a very remarkable bird, which about two centuries ago existed in considerable abundance, in the isles of Mauritius, Bourbon, and Rodriguez. It was a rather large fowl, incapable of rising from the ground, by reason of the imperfect development of its wings, of massive, uncouth figure, predisposed to fatness, and noted for the sapidity of its flesh. Two skulls and two unmatched feet of this strange bird are preserved in European museums; and these shew that its nearest affinities were with the pigeon-tribe, of which we know some species of terrestrial habits, but none approaching this bird in its absolute confinement to the earth.

In the reports of numerous voyagers who visited these islands from the end of the fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, we have many accounts of the appearance and habits of this bird, evidently sketched from the life. Some of the descriptions, as also the figures by which they are illustrated, are quaint enough; as, for example, that graphic sketch hit off by old Sir Thomas Herbert, who saw the bird in his travels in 1634:--

"The Dodo," he says, "comes first to our description. Here and in
Dygarrois (and nowhere else that I c^d ever see or heare of) is
generated the Dodo. (A Portuguize name it is, and has reference to
her simplenes) a bird which for shape and rareness might be call'd
a Ph{oe}nix (wer't in Arabia); her body is round and extreame fat,
her slow pace begets that corpulencie; few of them weigh lesse than
fifty pound: better to the eye than the stomack: greasie appetites
may perhaps commend them, but, to the indifferently curious,
nourishment, but prove offensive. Let's take her picture: her
visage darts forth melancholy, as sensible of nature's injurie in
framing so great and massive a body to be directed by such small
and complementall wings, as are unable to hoise her from the
ground, serving only to prove her a bird; which otherwise might be
doubted of: her head is variously drest, the one halfe hooded with
downy blackish feathers; the other perfectly naked; of a whitish
hue, as if a transparent lawne had covered it; her bill is very
howked and bends downwards, the thrill or breathing place is in the
midst of it; from which part to the end, the colour is a light
greene mixt with a pale yellow; her eyes be round and small, and
bright as diamonds; her cloathing is of finest downe, such as ye
see in goslins; her trayne is (like a China beard) of three or
foure short feythers; her legs thick, and black, and strong; her
tallons or pounces sharp; her stomack fiery hot, so as stones and
yron are easilie digested in it; in that and shape, not a little
resembling the Africk oestriches: but so much, as for their more
certain dyfference I dare to give thee (with two others) her
representation."[62]

It is pretty certain that a living specimen was about the same time exhibited in England. Sir Hamon L'Estrange tells us distinctly that he _saw_ it. His original MS. is preserved in the British Museum, and with some blanks caused by the injury of time, of no great consequence, reads as follows:--

"About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture
of a strange fowl hong out upon a cloth.
vas and myselfe with one or two more Gen. in
company went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was a
greate fowle somewhat bigger than the largest Turky Cock and so
legged and footed but stouter and thicker and of a more erect
shape, coloured before like the breast of a yong Cock Fesan and on
the back of dunn or deare coulour. The keeper called it a Dodo and
in the ende of a chimney in the chamber there lay an heap of large
pebble stones whereof hee gave it many in our sight, some as bigg
as nutmegs and the keeper told us shee eats them conducing to
digestion and though I remember not how farre the keeper was
questioned therein yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast
them all agayne."[63]

It is probable that this very specimen passed into the museum of Tradescant, who, in the Catalogue of "The Collection of Rarities preserved at Lambeth," dated 1656, mentions the following: "Dodar from the Island Mauritius: it is not able to flie being so bigg." Willoughby the ornithologist, a most unexceptionable testimony, says that he saw this specimen in Tradescant's museum: it is mentioned also by others;--as by Llhwyd in 1684, and by Hyde in 1700. It passed, with the rest of the Tradescant Collection, to Oxford, and thus became part of the Ashmolean Museum,--and being in a decayed condition, was ordered to be destroyed by the authorities, who had no apprehension of its value, in 1755. The skull and one foot, however, were preserved, and are still in the Museum at Oxford. Remains of the Dodo have been dug up in the Mauritius, and are in the Paris Museum, and in that of the Zoological Society of London. The bird certainly does not exist there now, nor in either of the neighbouring islands.

In the British Museum there is a fine original painting, once the property of George Edwards, the celebrated bird painter, representing the Dodo surrounded by other minor birds and reptiles. Edwards states that "it was drawn in Holland, from a living bird brought from St Maurice's Island, in the East Indies. It was the property of Sir Hans Sloane at the time of his death, and afterwards becoming my property, I deposited it in the British Museum as a great curiosity."

Professor Owen has discovered another original figure of this interesting form in Savary's painting of "Orpheus and the Beasts," at the Hague. The figure, though small, displays all the characteristic peculiarities, and agrees well with Edwards' painting, while evincing that it was copied from the living bird.

It is possible that there were two species of Dodo; which would explain certain discrepancies in the descriptions of observers. At all events we have here one, if not more, conspicuous animal absolutely extinguished within the last two hundred years.

Just about a century ago a great animal disappeared from the ocean, which, according to Owen, was contemporary with the fossil elephant and rhinoceros of Siberia and England. Steller, a Russian voyager and naturalist, discovered the creature, afterward called _Stelleria_ by Cuvier, in Behring's Straits; a huge, unwieldy whale-like animal, one of the marine pachyderms, allied to the Manatee, but much larger, being twenty-five feet long, and twenty in circumference. Its flesh was good for food, and from its inertness and incapacity for defence, the race was extirpated in a few years. Steller first discovered the species in 1741, and the last known specimen was killed in 1768. It is believed to be quite extinct, as it has never been met with since.

Nearly a century ago, Sonnerat found in Madagascar, a curious animal, (_Cheiromys_,) which in structure seems to connect the monkeys with the squirrels. So rare was it there that even the natives viewed it with curiosity as an animal altogether unknown to them; and, from their exclamations of astonishment rather than from its cry, the French naturalist is said to have conferred upon it the name of Aye-aye, by which it is now known. _Not a specimen, as I believe, has been seen since Sonnerat's day_, so that, if not actually obliterated, the species must be on the verge of extinction.

Species are dying out in our own day. I have already cited the interesting case of the Moho, that fine Gallinule of New Zealand, of which a specimen--probably the last of its race,--was obtained by Mr Walter Mantell; and that of the Kaureke, the badger-like quadruped of the same islands, which was formerly domesticated by the Maoris, but which now cannot be found.

The Samoa Isles in the Pacific recently possessed a large and handsome kind of pigeon, of richly-coloured plumage, which the natives called _Manu-mea_, but to which modern naturalists have given the name of _Didunculus strigirostris_. It was, both by structure and habit, essentially a ground pigeon, but not so exclusively but that it fed, and roosted too, according to Lieut. Walpole, among the branches of tall trees. Mr T. Peale, the naturalist of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, who first described it, informs us that according to the tradition of the natives, it once abounded; but some years ago these persons, like more civilised folks, had a strong desire to make pets of cats, and found, by means of whale-ships, opportunities of procuring a supply; but the consequence of the introduction of "pussy,"--for under this familiar old-country title were the exotic tabbies introduced--was the rapid diminution of the handsome _Manu-mea_. Pussy did not fancy yams and taro--the vegetable diet on which the natives regaled--and took to the woods and mountains to search for something better. There she met with the feeble-winged _Didunculus_ scratching the soft earth for seeds, and with a purr and a mew soon scraped acquaintance with the stranger. Pussy declared she loved him well, and so she did--too well, in fact; she felt "as if she could eat him up,"--_and did_. The news soon spread among the tabbies that there were sweet birds in the woods, and the result is the almost total disappearance of poor _Manu-mea_. Like the Dodo, it has ceased to be, but at the hand of a more ignominious foe. The Samoan may truly say to his former pet, "_Cecidisti, O Manu-mea, non manu mea, sed ungue felino_." So rare had the bird become, that during the stay of the Expedition only three specimens could be procured, and of these two were lost by shipwreck. I do not know whether another has been met with since. Probably they are all gone; for that was twenty years ago.

When Norfolk Island,--that tiny spot in the Southern Ocean since so stained with human crime and misery--was first discovered, its tall and teeming forests were tenanted by a remarkable Parrot with a very long and slender hooked beak, which lived upon the honey of flowers. It was named _Nestor productus_. When Mr Gould visited Australia in his researches into the ornithology of those antipodeal regions, he found the Nestor Parrot absolutely limited to Philip Island, a tiny satellite of Norfolk Island, whose whole circumference is not more than five miles in extent. The war of extermination had been so successful in the larger island that, with the exception of a few specimens preserved in cages, not one was believed to survive. Since then its last retreat has been harried, and Mr J. H. Gurney thus writes the dirge of the last of the Nestors:--

"I have seen the man who exterminated the _Nestor productus_ from Philip Island, he having shot the last of that species left on the island; he informs me that they rarely made use of their wings, except when closely pressed; their mode of progression was by the upper mandible; and whenever he used to go to the island to shoot, he would invariably find them on the ground, except one, which used to be sentry on one of the lower branches of the _Araucaria excelsa_, and the instant any person landed, they would run to those trees and haul themselves up by the bill, and, as a matter of course, they would there remain till they were shot, or the intruder had left the island. He likewise informed me that there was a large species of hawk that used to commit great havoc amongst them, but what species it was he could not tell me."[64]

I have before mentioned that Professor Owen had recognised the species in fossil skulls from New Zealand, associated with remains of _Dinornis_, _Palapteryx_, and _Notornis_. Thus it appears that the long-billed Parrot is an ancient race, whose extreme decrepitude has just survived to our time;--that it first became extinct from New Zealand, then from Norfolk Island, and lastly from Philip Island. Peace to its ashes!

Mr Yarrell, in his "History of British Birds,"[65] commences his account of one of them in these words:--"The Great Auk is a very rare British Bird, and but few instances are recorded of its capture. The natives in the Orkneys informed Mr Bullock, on his tour through these islands several years ago, that only one male had made its appearance for a long time, which had regularly visited Papa Westra for several seasons. The female, which the natives call the queen of the Auks, was killed just before Mr Bullock's arrival. The king or male, Mr Bullock had the pleasure of chasing for several hours in a six-oared boat, but without being able to kill him, for though he frequently got near him, so expert was the bird in its natural element that it appeared impossible to shoot him. The rapidity with which he pursued his course under water was almost incredible. About a fortnight after Mr Bullock had left Papa Westra, this male bird was obtained and sent him, and at the sale of his collection, was purchased for the British Museum, where it is still carefully preserved."

This fine bird, which was larger than a goose, is believed to be extinct. Mr Bullock's specimen was taken in 1812; another was captured at St Kilda in 1822, another was picked up dead near Lundy Island in 1829, and yet another was taken in 1834, off the coast of Waterford.

On the north coast of Europe the bird is equally rare; not more than two or three, at the utmost, having been procured during the present century. During that period, however, it has haunted one or two breeding-rocks on the south coast of Iceland, in some abundance. In the years 1830 and 1831, as many as twenty-seven were obtained there, and from that time till 1840, about ten more. The last birds obtained on the Iceland coast were a pair, which were shot on their nest in 1844. The last taken in any locality, so far as is known, was one shot in 1848, by a peasant, on the Island of Wardoe, within the Arctic Circle.

Two centuries ago, the Great Auk was not uncommon on the shores of New England; and, off the great fishing-banks of Newfoundland, it appears to have been very abundant. "Its appearance was always hailed by the mariner approaching that desolate coast as the first indication of his having reached soundings on the fishing-banks. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these waters, as well as the Iceland and Faroe coasts, were annually visited by hundreds of ships from England, France, Spain, Holland, and Portugal; and these ships actually were accustomed to provision themselves with the bodies and eggs of these birds, which they found breeding in myriads on the low islands off the coast of Newfoundland. Besides the fresh birds consumed by the ship's crew, many tons were salted down for further use. In the space of an hour, these old voyagers tell us, they could fill thirty boats with the birds. It was only necessary to go on shore, armed with sticks to kill as many as they chose. The birds were so stupid that they allowed themselves to be taken up, on their own proper element, by boats under sail; and it is even said that on putting out a plank it was possible to drive the Great Auks up and out of the sea into boats. On land the sailors formed low enclosures of stones, into which they drove the Penguins [or Auks], and, as they were unable to fly, kept them there enclosed till they were wanted for the table."

"In 1841, a distinguished Norwegian naturalist, (too early, alas! lost to science,) Peter Stuwitz, visited Tunk Island, or Penguin Island, lying to the east of Newfoundland. Here, on the north-west shore of the island, he found enormous heaps of bones and skeletons of the Great Auk, lying either in exposed masses or slightly covered by the earth. On this side of the island the rocks slope gradually down to the shore; and here were still standing the stone fences and enclosures into which the birds were driven for slaughter."[66]

It is just possible that the bird may yet haunt the inaccessible coast of East Greenland, but ships sailing between that country and Iceland never meet with it at sea. Nor did Graah observe it during his toilsome researches east of Cape Farewell. The numerous fishing craft that every season crowd the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador forbid the notion that it yet lingers there; for the great market-value set upon the bird and its eggs for collections would prevent its existence there from being overlooked. The numerous Polar voyages of discovery, and the annual fleets of whalers, would certainly have discovered it, if it still haunted the more northern regions. It is possible that a few isolated individuals may still survive; but it is the habit of the bird, as of most sea-fowl, to breed in society in bare seaward rocks, and the circumstance that no breeding station is known to be now frequented by the Great Auk renders it but too probable that it also must be classed among the species that were.

The interest attached to this now extinct bird has induced some correspondents of the _Zoologist_ to attempt an enumeration of the specimens, both of the bird and of its eggs, (which from their great size, as well as from their rarity, have always had a value with collectors,) known to be preserved in cabinets. The result is that English collections contain 14 birds and 23 eggs; those of continental Europe, 11 birds and 20 eggs; the United States, 1 bird and 2 eggs:--the total being 26 birds and 45 eggs.

It would appear that the rock off the south of Iceland which was the chief breeding resort of the Great Auk, and which from that circumstance bore the name or "Geir-fulga Sker," sank to the level of the sea during a volcanic disturbance in or about the year 1830. "Such disappearance of the fit and favourable breeding-places of the _Alca impennis_," observes Professor Owen, "must form an important element in its decline towards extinction." One might think that there would be rocks enough left for the birds to choose a fresh station; but really we do not know what are the elements of choice in such a case: some peculiarities exist which make one particular rock to be selected by sea-fowl, when others apparently to us as suitable are quite neglected; but we do not know what they are. Possibly when Geir-fulga Sker sank, there was no other islet fit to supply the blank. Possibly, too, the submersion took place during the breeding season, drowning the eggs or young. If this was the case, it would indeed be "a heavy blow and great discouragement" to the dwindling Alcine nation.

Mr Darwin speaks of a large wolf-like Fox (_Canis antarcticus_) which at the time of his voyage was common to both the Falkland Islands, but absolutely confined to them. He says, "As far as I am aware, there is no other instance in any part of the world, of so small a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessing so large an aboriginal quadruped peculiar to itself. Their numbers have rapidly decreased; they are already banished from that half of the island which lies to the eastward of the neck of land between St Salvador Bay and Berkeley Sound. Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with the Dodo, as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth."[67]

The Musk Ox (_Ovibos moschatus_), a long-haired ruminant, resembling what you would suppose a cross between a bull and a sheep might be,--formerly an inhabitant of Britain with the Elephant and the Hyena, but now found only on the polar margins of North America,--is becoming very scarce; and it is probable that before long its last representative will leave its bones with those of the lamented Franklin and his companions.

From the more perishable character of vegetable tissues we have far less data for determining the extinction of plant species; but analogy renders it highly probable that these also have died out, and are dying in a corresponding ratio with animals. I am not aware that a single example can be adduced of a plant that has certainly ceased to exist during the historic era. But Humboldt mentions a very remarkable tree in Mexico, of which it is believed only a single specimen remains in a state of nature. It is the Hand-tree (_Cheirostemon platanoides_), a sterculaceous plant with large plane-like leaves, and with the anthers connected together in such a manner as to resemble a hand or claw rising from the beautiful purplish-red blossoms. "There is in all the Mexican free States only one individual remaining, one single primeval stem of this wonderful genus. It is supposed not to be indigenous, but to have been planted by a king of Toluca about five hundred years ago. I found that the spot where the Arbol de las Manitas stands is 8825 feet above the level of the sea. Why is there only one tree of the kind? Whence did the kings of Toluca obtain the young tree, or the seed? It is equally enigmatical that Montezuma should not have possessed one of these trees in his botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapoltepec, and Iztapalapan, which were used as late as by Philip the Second's physician, Hernandez, and of which gardens traces still remain; and it appears no less striking that the Hand-tree should not have found a place among the drawings of subjects connected with Natural History, which Nezahual Coyotl, king of Tezcuco, caused to be made half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards."

There is an example of this interesting plant growing in one of the conservatories at Kew, but I do not know whence it was obtained. It has been asserted that it grows wild in the forests of Guatemala.

Leaving plants out of consideration from lack of adequate data, we find that a considerable number of species of animals have certainly ceased to exist since man inhabited the globe. There have been, doubtless, many others that have shared the same fate, which we know nothing about. It is only within the last hundred years that we have had anything approaching to an acquaintance with the living fauna of the earth; yet, during that time some seven or eight creatures we know have been extinguished. Fully half of these,--the Auk, the Didunculus, the Notornis, and the Nestor,--within the last ten years! It would really seem as if the more complete and comprehensive an acquaintance with the animals of the world became, the more frequently this strange phenomenon of expiring species was presented to us. Perhaps it is not extravagant to suppose that--including all the invertebrate animals, the countless hosts of insects, and all the recondite forms that dwell in the recesses of the ocean--a species fades from existence every year. All the examples that have been given were either Mammalia or Birds, (_the Colossochelys_ only excepted:) now these, though the most conspicuous and best known, are almost the least populous classes of living beings. There is no reason whatever for concluding that the law of mortality of species does not extend to all the other classes, vertebrate and invertebrate, in an equal ratio, so that my estimate will appear, I think, a very moderate one. Yet it is a startling thought, and one which the mind does not entertain without a measure of revulsion, that the passing of every century in the world's history has left its fauna _minus_ a hundred species of animals that were denizens of the earth when it began. I was going to say "left the fauna so much _poorer_;" but that I am not sure of. The term would imply that the blanks are not filled up; and that, I repeat, I am not sure of. Probability would suggest that new forms are continually created to supply the lack of deceased ones; and it may be that _some_, at least, of the creatures ever and anon described as new to science, especially in old and well-searched regions, may be newly called into being, as well as newly discovered. It may be so, I say; I have no evidence that it is so, except the probability of analogy; we know that the rate of mortality among _individuals_ of a species, speaking generally, is equalled by the rate of birth, and we may suppose this balance of life to be paralleled when the unit is a species, and not an individual. If the Word of God contained anything either in statement or principle contrary to such a supposition, I would not entertain it for a moment, but I do not know that it does. I do not know that it is anywhere implied that God created no more after the six days' work was done. His Sabbath-rest having been broken by the incoming of sin, we know from John v. 17, that He continued to work without interruption; and we may fairly conclude that progressive creation was included as a part of that unceasing work.

I know not whether my readers will take the same concern as I do in this subject of the dying-out of species, but to me it possesses a very peculiar interest. Death is a mysterious event, come when and how it will; and surely the departure from existence of a species, of a type of being, that has subsisted in contemporary thousands of individuals, for thousands of years, is not less imposingly mysterious than that of the individual exemplar.

We do not know with any precision what are the immediate causes of death in a species. Is there a definite limit to life imposed at first? or is this limit left, so to speak, to be determined by accidental circumstances? Perhaps both: but if the latter, what are those circumstances?

Professor Owen says:--"There are characters in land animals rendering them more obnoxious to extirpating influences, which may explain why so many of the larger species of particular groups have become extinct, whilst smaller species of equal antiquity have survived. In proportion to its bulk is the difficulty of the contest which the animal has to maintain against the surrounding agencies that are ever tending to dissolve the vital bond, and subjugate the living matter to the ordinary chemical and physical forces. Any changes, therefore, in such external agencies as a species may have been originally adapted to exist in, will militate against that existence in a degree proportionate to the size which may characterise the species. If a dry season be gradually prolonged, the large mammal will suffer from the drought sooner than the small one; if such alteration of climate affect the quantity of vegetable food, the bulky herbivore will first feel the effects of stinted nourishment; if new enemies be introduced, the large and conspicuous animal will fall a prey while the smaller kinds conceal themselves and escape. Small quadrupeds, moreover, are more prolific than large ones. Those of the bulk of the mastodons, megatheria, glyptodons, and diprotodons, are uniparous. The actual presence, therefore, of small species of animals in countries where larger species of the same natural families formerly existed, is not the consequence of degeneration--of any gradual diminution of the size--of such species, but is the result of circumstances which may be illustrated by the fable of 'the Oak and the Reed;' the smaller and feebler animals have bent and accommodated themselves to changes to which the larger species have succumbed."[68]

"We do not steadily bear in mind," remarks Mr Darwin, "how profoundly ignorant we are of the condition of existence of every animal; nor do we always remember that some check is constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every organised being left in a state of nature. The supply of food, on an average, remains constant; yet the tendency in every animal to increase by propagation is geometrical; and its surprising effects have nowhere been more astonishingly shewn, than in the case of the European animals run wild during the last few centuries in America. Every animal in a state of nature regularly breeds; yet in a species long established, any _great_ increase in numbers is obviously impossible, and must be checked by some means. We are nevertheless seldom able with certainty to tell in any given species, at what period of life, or at what period of the year, or whether only at long intervals, the check falls; or again, what is the precise nature of the check. Hence probably it is, that we feel so little surprise at one, of two species closely allied in habits, being rare and the other abundant in the same district; or again, that one should be abundant in one district, and another, filling the same place in the economy of nature, should be abundant in a neighbouring district, differing very little in its conditions. If asked how this is, one immediately replies that it is determined by some slight difference in climate, food, or the number of enemies: yet how rarely, if ever, we can point out the precise cause and manner of action of the check! We are, therefore, driven to the conclusion that causes generally quite inappreciable by us, determine whether a given species shall be abundant or scanty in numbers.

"In the cases where we can trace the extinction of a species through man, either wholly or in one limited district, we know that it becomes rarer and rarer, and is then lost; it would be difficult to point out any just distinction between a species destroyed by man or by the increase of its natural enemies. The evidence of rarity preceding extinction, is more striking in the successive tertiary strata, as remarked by several able observers; it has often been found that a shell very common in a tertiary stratum is now most rare, and has even long been thought to be extinct. If, then, as appears probable, species first become rare and then extinct--if the too rapid increase of every species, even the most favoured, is steadily checked, as we must admit, though how and when it is hard to say--and if we see, without the smallest surprise, though unable to assign the precise reason, one species abundant, and another closely-allied species rare in the same district--why should we feel such great astonishment at the rarity being carried a step further to extinction? An action going on, on every side of us, and yet barely appreciable, might surely be carried a little further, without exciting our observation. Who could feel any great surprise at hearing that the Megalonyx was formerly rare compared with the Megatherium, or that one of the fossil Monkeys was few in number compared with one of the now living Monkeys? and yet, in this comparative rarity, we should have the plainest evidence of less favourable conditions for their existence. To admit that species generally become rare before they become extinct--to feel no surprise at the comparative rarity of one species with another, and yet to call in some extraordinary agent and to marvel greatly when a species ceases to exist, appears to me much the same as to admit that sickness in the individual is the prelude of death--to feel no surprise at sickness--but when the sick man dies to wonder, and to believe that he died through violence."[69]

Geographical distribution is an important element in this question of extinction. A species that is spread over a wide region is far more likely to survive than one which is confined to a limited district; and extraneous influences acting prejudicially will exterminate a species which is confined to an island much sooner than if it had a continent to retire upon. We have seen how the _Nestor_ Parrot became extinct in New Zealand, while it survived in Norfolk Island, because the former was colonised by the Maori race, while the latter remained in its virginity. But how quickly did the poor Parrot succumb as soon as man set his foot on Norfolk and Philip Islands! And how brief was the lease of life accorded to the _Didunculus_, when once the "Pussies" found their way to the little Samoa isles!

Very many islands have a fauna that is to a great extent peculiar to themselves. I know that, in Jamaica, the Humming-birds, some of the Parrots, some of the Cuckoos, most of the Pigeons, many of the smaller birds, and, I think, all of the Reptiles, are found nowhere else. Nay, more, that even the smaller islands of the Antilles have each a fauna of its own, unshared with any other land;--its own Humming-birds, its own Lizards and Snakes; its own Butterflies and Beetles, its own Spiders, its own Snails, its own Worms. How likely are some of these very limited species to become extinguished! By the increasing aggressions of clearing and cultivating man; by slight changes of level; even by electric and meteoric phenomena acting very locally. I find that, in Jamaica, many of the animals peculiar to the island are not spread over the whole surface, limited as that is, but are confined to a single small district. In some cases, the individuals are but few, even in that favoured locality; how easily we may conceive of a season drier than ordinary, or wetter than ordinary, or a flood, or a hurricane of unusual violence, or a volcanic eruption, either killing outright these few individuals, or destroying their means of living, and so indirectly destroying them by starvation. And then the species has disappeared!

The common Red Grouse, so abundantly seen during the season hanging at every poulterer's and game-dealer's shop in London, is absolutely unknown out of the British Isles. It could not live except in wide, unenclosed, uncultivated districts; so that when the period arrives that the whole of British land is enclosed and brought under cultivation, the Grouse's lease of life will expire. We owe it to our hard-worked members of Parliament to hope that this condition of things may be distant.

[1] See my _Omphalos_,--_passim_.

[2] The gradual but constant elevation of the bed of the Baltic, and the subsidence of that of the Pacific Ocean, are examples on a large scale.

[3] Gen. x. 5.

[4] _Chlamydotherium_, _Euryodon_, _Glossotherium_, _&c._

[5] Owen _On the Mylodon_.

[6] Perhaps the most complete and the most magnificent skeleton of this animal ever discovered, was exhumed in 1849 at Killowen, in Co. Wexford. It was buried _only four feet below the surface_, between the vegetable mould and plastic clay. The roots of the black willow and German rush had entwined themselves round the bones, and some seeds, ascertained to be those of the wild cabbage, were found in the same bed. The dimensions of the skeleton were as follows:--Height, 12-1/2 feet to the tips of the horns, 7 feet to the top of the pelvis; expanse of horns 11 feet in a chord, or 13 feet 6 inches along the curve; palm of the antlers 2 feet 7 inches long by 1 foot 5 inches broad, some of the snags 2 feet 6 inches long; the face 1 foot 10-1/2 inches in length.

[7] _Annals of Nat. Hist._ xv.

[8] _Hist. Animals_, xvi. 17.

[9] _Nat. Hist._ ix. 10.

[10] _On the Mammoth or Fossil Elephant, &c._ London, 1819.

[11] _Testimony of the Rocks_, p. 97.

[12] See vol. i. p. 361, _supra_.

[13] Latrobe's _Mexico_, p. 192.

[14] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. v.

[15] _Nat. Voy._ ch. viii.

[16] _Compts Rendus_, Jan. 27, 1851.

[17] _Proc. Zool. Soc._, Jan. 27, 1852.

[18] "_The_ Humming-bird." Rather a vague mode of speaking, by a zoologist, of a genus which numbers more than three hundred species, varying in size from that of a swallow to that of a humble-bee. But probably he means one of the minuter species.

[19] _Proc. Zool. Soc._, Nov. 7, 1850.

[20] In the _Times_ of Feb. 21, 1861.

[21] _Proc. Roy. Soc._, X. xxxv. 50.

[22] _Ibid._ IX. xxix. 133.

[23] Because comparatively few readers, and especially the critics, will take the trouble to ascertain what an author really means if he attempt argumentation, generally supposing him to be proving something else than he propounds to himself, it may be needful to say, that I am not touching the question of the time required for the formation of the stratified rocks in general, but solely for that of the later Tertiary deposits.

[24] _Reports of Analysis_, by Apjohn.

[25] Hart _On the Fossil Deer_.

[26] _Zoologist_, for 1846: Preface, p. 10.

[27] Mr Newman, _op. cit._ x.

[28] _Geilt._--According to O'Reilly, this word means "a wild man or woman,--one living in woods,"--a maniac. It may, however, have been figuratively applied to some very fierce or untameable creature, either quadruped or bird, which inhabited the woods. But that the _Simiae_, or monkey tribe, were not likely to have at any time inhabited so cold a country, one would have seen in the term an exceedingly apt expression for "the wild man of the woods." (Note by Translator.)

But, I venture to remind the reader, there was a veritable ape found in Britain during the very era of the Giant Deer, and of many of the now extant animals. I refer to the _Macacus pliocaenus_ (Owen) of the fresh-water deposits. Is it not just possible that the _Geilt_ of Ireland, the first-named animal in the poem, may have been this species? A _Macacus_ still lingers in Europe, though the elephants and hippopotamuses have long deserted us.

[29] _Grib._--Probably the Osprey.

[30] These Wild Oxen are worthy of notice.

[31] The _Toghmall_ was a bird kept as a pet. "When Cuchulain slung a stone at Queen Meave he killed the Toghmall that was sitting on her shoulder."

[32] _Ruilech._--Unknown.

[33] _Snag._--Probably the Crane, or one of the Heron tribe.

[34] _Echtach._--From a legend attached to the locality, there is a possibility that these were a peculiar breed of horned cattle.

[35] _Drenn._--Probably the Wren.

[36] _Cainche_--Unknown.

[37] _Errfiach._--Unknown.

[38] _Cricharan._--Possibly the Squirrel, or the Marten.

[39] Mr Curry says, "In the dictionaries _Ormchre_ is the term for a leopard, but that animal did not exist in Ireland." But the caves of Britain shew that very formidable _Felidae_ roamed here in the Later Tertiary Era.

[40] _Riabhog._--The "cuckoo's waiting-maid," a little bird, is still so called in the west of Ireland. In England the wryneck (_Yunx torquilla_) bears this office, and also in Wales, where Pennant says it is called _Gwas y gog_, which means the same thing.

[41] _Peatans._--Conjectured to be Leverets.

[42] What is the difference between wild Boars and wild Hogs? The ransom, too, was to consist of a male and a _female_ of each kind of _wild_ animals.

[43] _Fereidhin._--Unknown.

[44] See note [42] _supra_.

[45] _Iaronn._--Unknown.

[46] _Geisechtachs._--"Screamers;"--perhaps Peacocks. But is it likely that the Peacock and the Pheasant (_vide supra_) were imported from the East so early?

[47] _Bruacharan._--Unknown.

[48] _Naescan._--The Snipe may be meant.

[49] The term _Spireog_ is still used in the locality referred to, and signifies the Sparrowhawk. It has, however, somewhat of a Saxon sound.

[50] _Sgreachog._--Conjecturally, Screech-owl; or Jay.

[51] _Geilt Glinne._--See note [28] on p. 58.

[52] The _Onchu_ has been mentioned before. See note [39] on p. 59. There were several kindred _Felidae_ in the Pliocene period. May the word refer to two of these bearing the same name, but the one distinguished by the term _fleet_?

[53] "_Pigs_" again! This is the fourth time. "Wild Hogs, wild Boars, Pigs, and yet Pigs." From the prominence thus given to the grunting race in the ransom, one is tempted to conclude that "'Twas the Pig that paid the rint," then, as now!

[54] Mr Wilde, in an interesting paper "On the Unmanufactured Animal Remains belonging to the Royal Irish Academy," read before the Academy on the 9th and 25th of May, 1859, to which I am indebted for the foregoing poem, cites the following legend, which we might have referred to the _Megaceros_, but that he appears to consider the animal in question the Red Deer or Stag:--"On another occasion St Patrick and his retinue, with Cailte MacRonain, came to the house of a rich landholder who lived in the southern part of the present County of Kildare, near the river Slaney. The farmer complained to Cailte that although he sowed a great quantity of corn every year, it yielded him no profit, on account of _a huge wild Deer_ which every year came across the Slaney from the west when the corn was ripe for cutting, and, rushing through it in all directions, trampled it down under his feet. Cailte undertook to relieve him, and he sent into Munster for his seven deer-nets, which arrived in due time. He then went out and placed his men and his hounds in the paths through which the great deer was accustomed to pass, and he set his deer-nets upon the cliffs, passes, and rivers around, and when he saw the animal coming to the Ford of the Red Deer on the river Slaney, he took his spear and cast a fortunate throw at him, driving it the length of a man's arm out through the opposite side; and 'The Red Ford of the Great Deer' is the name of that pass on the Slaney ever since; and they brought him back to Drom Lethan, or 'The Broad Hill,' which is called 'The Broad Hill of the Great Wild Deer.'"

[55] The Editor of "The Indian Field;" in the _Zoologist_, p. 6427.

[56] The Welsh "Triads," supposed to have been compiled in the seventh century, say that "the Kymri, a Celtic tribe, first inhabited Britain; before them were no men here, but only bears, wolves, beavers, and oxen with high prominences." Were these Bisons?

[57] See Vol. i, 203, _supra_.

[58] This is the more interesting because it includes the _Urus_ as well as the "_Schelch_," which latter, though the meaning of the word is not certain, some are disposed to identify with the Giant Deer of Ireland.

[59] See note [56] on p. 68.

[60] M.S. H. ii. 13.

[61] _Blackwood's Magazine_, January 1849.

[62] "Travels," 4th ed., 1677.

[63] Sloane MSS., No. 1839.

[64] _Zoologist_, p. 4298.

[65] _British Birds_, iii. 477, (Ed. 2.)

[66] Dr Charlton, in the _Trans. Tyneside Nat. Hist. Soc._

[67] _Nat. Voy._, ch. ix.

[68] Lecture; reported in the _Athenaeum_ for May 21, 1859.

[69] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. viii.

II.

THE MARVELLOUS.

The vulgar mind is very prone to love the marvellous, and to count for a prodigy every unusual phenomenon, every occurrence not perfectly accountable on any hypothesis which is familiar to them. The poetical period of history in every country is full of prodigies; for in the dawn of civilisation the physical laws of nature are little understood, and multitudes of natural phenomena are either referred to false causes, or, being unreferrible to any recognised cause, are set down as mere wonders. It is the province of science to dispel these delusions, to expose the undiscovered, but by no means undiscoverable, origins of unusual events, and thus to be continually narrowing the limits of the unknown. These limits, however, have not even yet quite reached the minuteness of a mathematical point; and there are a few marvels left for the indefatigable rummagings of modern science to explain.

Perhaps the predominant tendency of uneducated minds in the present day is rather to attribute effects to _false_ causes, than to leave them without any assignable cause. It is much easier for an unreasoning person to say that Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands, than to leave Goodwin Sands quite unaccounted for; or to say, the plant-lice suddenly appear crowding the rose-twigs, "the east wind has cast a blight," or "it is something in the air," than "I do not know how to account for their appearance." To a reflecting person, indeed, who weighs forces, the east wind appears as incompetent to the production of living animals as the tall tower to the origination of a sand-bank; and this, though he might be able to suggest nothing a whit more competent. What should he do in such a case? Manifestly this--test the actual existence and conditions of the phenomenon; see that it really has occurred; and, if the fact cannot be denied, admit it as a fact, and wait further light as to its causation.

I do not by any means presume to declare the universal "why and because" of every familiar or unfamiliar occurrence: I leave that to more pretentious philosophers; smiling occasionally in my sleeve at the egotism which cannot see its own _non-sequiturs_. But still less can I consent to set aside every phenomenon which I cannot explain, with the common resource,--"Pooh! pooh! there must be some mistake!" Rather would I say, "There must still be some ignorance in me: near as I have reached to the summit of the ladder of knowledge, there must be still one or two rongs to be mounted before I can proclaim my mastery of all, absolutely _all_, the occult causes of things. Therefore, till then I must be content with the lowlier task of patiently accumulating evidence."

At various times and in various places popular superstition has been excited by the occurrence of what have been called showers of blood. The destruction of cities and of kingdoms has been, according to historians, preceded by this awful omen. Yet this has been explained by a very natural and accountable phenomenon. In the year 1553, the hedges and trees, the stones of the pathway, and the clothes of many persons, were sprinkled copiously with drops of red fluid, which was supposed to be blood, till some observant person noticed the coincident appearance of unusual swarms of butterflies, and marked that the coloured drops proceeded from them. Again, at Aix la Chapelle in 1608, the same awful appearance occurred, especially on the walls of a particular churchyard. M. Peiresc, an able naturalist, residing at Aix, traced the phenomenon here to the same cause. Just before, he had found a large chrysalis, which he had enclosed in a box, in order to identify the species to which it belonged. A few days after, hearing a rustling, he opened the box, and discovered a beautiful butterfly evolved from the pupa, which had left upon the floor of its prison a large red stain. He saw that the character of this deposit agreed exactly with that of the ominous drops abroad, and remarking an unusual abundance of the same kind of butterfly, he conceived that he had revealed the cause of the terrific phenomenon. He was confirmed in this belief by the circumstance that the supposed blood-drops were not found in the streets of the town, nor upon the roofs of the houses, where they must have occurred had they fallen from the sky; and, moreover, that it was rare to see any on the exposed parts of stones, walls, &c.; but rather under the protection of angles, and in slight cavities--which agrees well with the habits of the insects in question. No doubt this was the true explanation of the phenomenon, but it does not say much for the powers of observation which could have attributed it to blood, for the colour is by no means that of blood, especially _dried_ blood, but much more crimson; and the earthy deposit, resembling chalk, which copiously remains after the fluid part has evaporated, would in a moment convince any one who was in the habit of comparing things which differ, that, whatever the substance was, blood it certainly was not.