EXTINCTION OF SPECIES.

In reviewing the past succession of different forms of ancient life upon the globe, we are reminded of a series of dissolving views, in which each species evolves itself by an imperceptible gradation from some pre-existing one, arrives at its maximum of individuality, and then slowly fades away, while another type, either higher or lower, evolved in turn from it, emerges from obscurity, and succeeds it on the field of view.

Specific individuality has in all cases a natural term, dependent on physical causes, but that term is in many cases abruptly anticipated by a combination of unfavourable conditions.

Alteration of climate, isolation by geological changes, such as the submergence of continents and islands, and the competition of other species, are among the causes which have at all times operated towards its destruction; while, since the evolution of man, his agency, so far as we can judge by what we know of his later history, has been especially active in the same direction.

The limited distribution of many species, even when not enforced by insular conditions, is remarkable, and, of course, highly favourable to their destruction. A multiplicity of examples are familiar to naturalists, and possibly not a few may have attracted the attention of the ordinary observer.For instance, it is probably generally known, that in our own island, the red grouse (which, by the way, is a species peculiar to Great Britain) is confined to certain moorlands, the ruffs and reeves to fen districts, and the nightingale,[38] chough, and other species to a few counties; while Ireland is devoid of almost all the species of reptiles common to Great Britain. In the former cases, the need of or predilection for certain foods probably determines the favourite locality, and there are few countries which would not furnish similar examples. In the latter, the explanation depends on biological conditions dating prior to the separation of Ireland from the main continent. Among birds, it might fairly be presumed that the power of flight would produce unlimited territorial expansion, but in many instances the reverse is found to be the case: a remarkable example being afforded by the island of Tasmania, a portion of which is called the unsettled waste lands, or Western Country. This district, which comprises about one-third of the island upon the western side, and is mainly composed of mountain chains of granites, quartzite, and mica schists, is entirely devoid of the numerous species of garrulous and gay-plumaged birds, such as the Mynah mocking-bird, white cockatoo, wattle bird, and Rosella parrot, though these abundantly enliven the eastern districts, which are fertilized by rich soils due to the presence of ranges of basalt, greenstone, and other trappean rocks.

Another equally striking instance is given by my late father, Mr. J. Gould, in his work on the humming-birds. Of two species, inhabiting respectively the adjacent mountains of Pichincha and Chimborazo at certain elevations, each is strictly confined to its own mountain; and, if my memory serves me correctly, he mentions similar instances of species peculiar to different peaks of the Andes.

Limitation by insular isolation is intelligible, especially in the case of mammals and reptiles, and of birds possessing but small power of flight; and we are, therefore, not surprised to find Mr. Gosse indicating, among other examples, that even the smallest of the Antilles has each a fauna of its own, while the humming-birds, some of the parrots, cuckoos, and pigeons, and many of the smaller birds are peculiar to Jamaica. He states still further, that in the latter instance many of the animals are not distributed over the whole island, but confined to a single small district.

Continental limitation is effected by mountain barriers. Thus, according to Mr. Wallace, almost all the mammalia, birds, and insects on one side of the Andes and Rocky Mountains are distinct in species from those on the other; while a similar difference, but smaller in degree, exists with reference to regions adjacent to the Alps and Pyrenees.

Climate, broad rivers, seas, oceans, forests, and even large desert wastes, like the Sahara or the great desert of Gobi, also act more or less effectively as girdles which confine species within certain limits.

Dependence on each other or on supplies of appropriate food also form minor yet practical factors in the sum of limitation; and a curious example of the first is given by Dr. Van Lennep with reference to the small migratory birds that are unable to perform the flight of three hundred and fifty miles across the Mediterranean. He states that these are carried across on the backs of cranes.[39]

The question of food-supply is involved in the more extended subject of geological structure, as controlling the flora and the insect life dependent on it. As an example we may cite the disappearance of the capercailzie from Denmark with the decay of the pine forests abundant during late Tertiary periods.

Collision, direct or indirect, with inimical species often has a fatal ending. Thus the dodo was exterminated by the swine which the early visitors introduced to the Mauritius and permitted to run wild there; while the indigenous insects, mollusca, and perhaps some of the birds of St. Helena, disappeared as soon as the introduction of goats caused the destruction of the whole flora of forest trees.

The Tsetse fly extirpates all horses, dogs, and cattle, from certain districts of South Africa, and a representative species in Paraguay is equally fatal to new-born cattle and horses.

Mr. Darwin[40] shows that the struggle is more severe between species of the same genus, when they come into competition with each other, than between species of distinct genera. Thus one species of swallow has recently expelled another from part of the United States; and the missel-thrush has driven the song-thrush from part of Scotland. In Australia the imported hive-bee is rapidly exterminating the small stingless native bee, and similar cases might be found in any number.

Mr. Wallace, in quoting Mr. Darwin as to these facts, points the conclusion that “any slight change, therefore, of physical geography or of climate, which allows allied species hitherto inhabiting distinct areas to come into contact, will often lead to the extermination of one of them.”

It is the province of the palÆontologist to enumerate the many remarkable forms which have passed away since man’s first appearance upon the globe, and to trace their fluctuations over both hemispheres as determined by the advance and retreat of glacial conditions, and by the protean forms assumed by past and existing continents under oscillations of elevation and depression. Many interesting points, such as the dates of the successive separation of Ireland and Great Britain from the main continent, can be determined with accuracy from the record furnished by the fossil remains of animals of those times; and many interesting associations of animals with man at various dates, in our present island home and in other countries, have been traced by the discovery of their remains in connection with his, in bone deposits in caverns and elsewhere.

Conversely, most valuable deductions are drawn by the zoologist from the review which he is enabled to take, through the connected labours of his colleagues in all departments, of the distinct life regions now mapped out upon the face of the globe. These, after the application of the necessary corrections for various disturbing or controlling influences referred to above, afford proof reaching far back into past periods, of successive alterations in the disposition of continents and oceans, and of connections long since obliterated between distant lands.

The palÆontologist reasons from the past to the present, the zoologist from the present to the past; and their mutual labours explain the evolution of existing forms, and the causes of the disparity or connection between those at present characterizing the different portions of the surface of the globe.

The palÆontologist, for example, traces the descent of the horse, which, until its reintroduction by the Spaniards was unknown in the New World, through a variety of intermediate forms, to the genus Orohippus occurring in Eocene deposits in Utah and Wyoming. This animal was no larger than a fox, and possessed four separated toes in front, and three behind. Domestic cattle he refers to the Bos primigenius, and many existing Carnivora to Tertiary forms such as the cave-bear, cave-lion, sabre-tiger, and the like.

The zoologist groups the existing fauna into distinct provinces, and demands, in explanation of the anomalies which these exhibit, the reconstruction of large areas, of which only small outlying districts remain at the present date, in many instances widely separated by oceans, though once forming parts of the same continent; and so, for the simile readily suggests itself, the workers in another branch of science, Philology, argue from words and roots scattered like fossils through the various dialects of very distant countries, a mutual descent from a common Aryan language: the language of a race of which no historical record exists, though in regard to its habits, customs, and distribution much may be affirmed from the large collection of word specimens stored in philological museums.

Thus Mr. Sclater, on zoological grounds, claims the late existence of a continent which he calls Lemuria, extending from Madagascar to Ceylon and Sumatra; and for similar reasons Mr. Wallace extends the Australia of Tertiary periods to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and perhaps to Fiji, and from its marsupial types infers a connection with the northern continent during the Secondary period.

Again, the connection of Europe with North Africa during a late geological period is inferred by many zoologists from the number of identical species of mammalia inhabiting the opposite sides of the Mediterranean, and palÆontologists confirm this by the discovery of the remains of elephants in cave-deposits in Malta, and of hippopotami in Gibraltar; while hydrographers furnish the supplemental suggestive evidence that an elevation of only fifteen hundred feet would be sufficient to establish two broad connections between the two continents—so as to unite Italy with Tripoli and Spain with Morocco, and to convert the Mediterranean Sea into two great lakes, which appears, in fact, to have been its condition during the Pliocene and Post Pliocene periods.

It was by means of these causeways that the large pachyderms entered Britain, then united to the continent; and it was over them they retreated when driven back by glacial conditions, their migration northward being effectually prevented by the destruction of the connecting arms of land.

Some difference of opinion exists among naturalists as to the extent to which zoological regions should be subdivided, and as to their respective limitations.

But Mr. A. R. Wallace, who has most recently written on the subject, is of opinion that the original division proposed by Mr. Sclater in 1857 is the most tenable, and he therefore adopts it in the very exhaustive work upon the geographical distribution of animals which he has recently issued. Mr. Sclater’s Six Regions are as follows:—

This arrangement is based upon a detailed examination of the chief genera and families of birds, and also very nearly represents the distribution of mammals and of reptiles. Its regions are not, as in other subsequently proposed and more artificial systems, controlled by climate; for they range, in some instances, from the pole to the tropics. It probably approaches more nearly than any other yet proposed to that desideratum, a division of the earth into regions, founded on a collation of the groups of forms indigenous to or typical of them, and upon a selection of those peculiar to them; with a disregard of, or only admitting with caution, any which, though common to and apparently establishing connection between two or more regions, may have in fact but little value for the purpose of such comparison; from the fact of its being possible to account for their extended range by their capability of easy transport from one region to another by common natural agencies.[41]

Such an arrangement should be consistent with the retrospective information afforded by palÆontology; and, taking an extended view of the subject, be not merely a catalogue of the present, but also an index of the past. It should afford an illustration of an existing phase of the distribution of animal life, considered as the last of a long series of similar phases which have successively resulted from changes in the disposition of land and water, and from other controlling agencies, throughout all time. A reconstruction of the areas respectively occupied by the sea and the land at different geological periods will be possible, or at least greatly facilitated, when a complete system of similar groupings, illustrative of each successive period, has been compiled.

It is obvious that any great cosmical change, affecting to a wide extent any of the regions, might determine a destruction of specific existence; and this on a large scale, in comparison with the change which is always progressing in a smaller degree in the different and isolated divisions.

The brief remarks which I have made on this subject are intended to suggest, rather than to demonstrate—which could only be done by a lengthy series of examples—the causes influencing specific existence and its in many cases extreme frailty of tenure. And I shall now conclude by citing from the works of Lyell and Wallace a short list of notable species, now extinct, whose remains have been collected from late Tertiary, and Post Tertiary deposits—that is to say, at a time subsequent to the appearance of man. From other authors I have extracted an enumeration of species which have become locally or entirely extinct within the historic period.

These instances will, I think, be sufficient to show that, as similar destructive causes must have been in action during pre-historic times, it is probable that, besides those remarkable animals of which remains have been discovered, many others which then existed may have perished without leaving any trace of their existence. There is, consequently, a possibility that some at least of the so-called myths respecting extraordinary creatures, hitherto considered fabulous, may merely be distorted accounts—traditions—of species as yet unrecognised by Science, which have actually existed, and that not remotely, as man’s congener.

Extinct Post Tertiary Mammalia.

The Mammoth.—Among other remarkable forms whose remains have been discovered in those later deposits, in which geologists are generally agreed that remains of man or traces of his handicraft have also been recognised, there is one which stands out prominently both for its magnitude and extensive range in time and space. Although the animal itself is now entirely extinct, delineations by the hand of PalÆolithic man have been preserved, and even frozen carcases, with the flesh uncorrupted and fit for food, have been occasionally discovered.

Fig. 9.—The Mammoth. (After Jukes.)

This is the mammoth, the Elephas primigenius of Blumenbach, a gigantic elephant nearly a third taller than the largest modern species, and twice its weight. Its body was protected from the severity of the semi-arctic conditions under which it flourished by a dense covering of reddish wool, and long black hair, and its head was armed or ornamented with tusks exceeding twelve feet in length, and curiously curved into three parts of a circle. Its ivory has long been, and still is, a valuable article of commerce, more especially in North-eastern Asia, and in Eschscholtz Bay in North America, near Behring’s straits, where entire skeletons are occasionally discovered, and where even the nature of its food has been ascertained from the undigested contents of its stomach.

There is a well-known case recorded of a specimen found (1799), frozen and encased in ice, at the mouth of the Lena. It was sixteen feet long, and the flesh was so well preserved that the Yakuts used it as food for their dogs. But similar instances occurred previously, for we find the illustrious savant and Emperor Kang Hi [A.D. 1662 to 1723] penning the following note[42] upon what could only have been this species:—

“The cold is extreme, and nearly continuous on the coasts of the northern sea beyond Tai-Tong-Kiang. It is on this coast that the animal called Fen Chou is found, the form of which resembles that of a rat, but which equals an elephant in size. It lives in obscure caverns, and flies from the light. There is obtained from it an ivory as white as that of the elephant, but easier to work, and which will not split. Its flesh is very cold and excellent for refreshing the blood. The ancient work Chin-y-king speaks of this animal in these terms: ‘There is in the depths of the north a rat which weighs as much as a thousand pounds; its flesh is very good for those who are heated.’ The TsÉe-Chou calls it Tai-Chou and speaks of another species which is not so large. It says that this is as big as a buffalo, buries itself like a mole, flies the light, and remains nearly always under ground; it is said that it would die if it saw the light of the sun or even that of the moon.”

Fig. 10.—Tooth of the Mammoth. (After Figuier.)

It seems probable that discoveries of mammoth tusks formed in part the basis for the story which Pliny tells in reference to fossil ivory. He says[43]:—“These animals [elephants] are well aware that the only spoil that we are anxious to procure of them is the part which forms their weapon of defence, by Juba called their horns, but by Herodotus, a much older writer, as well as by general usage, and more appropriately, their teeth. Hence it is that, when these tusks have fallen off, either from accident or old age, they bury them in the earth.”

NordenskjÖld[44] states that the savages with whom he came in contact frequently offered to him very fine mammoth tusks, and tools made of mammoth ivory. He computes that since the conquest of Siberia, useful tusks from more than twenty thousand animals have been collected.

Mr. Boyd Dawkins,[45] in a very exhaustive memoir on this animal, quotes an interesting notice of its fossil ivory having been brought for sale to Khiva. He derives[46] this account from an Arabian traveller, Abou-el-Cassim, who lived in the middle of the tenth century.

Figuier[47] says: “New Siberia and the Isle of Lachon are for the most part only an agglomeration of sand, of ice, and of elephants’ teeth. At every tempest the sea casts ashore new quantities of mammoth’s tusks, and the inhabitants of New Siberia carry on a profitable commerce in this fossil ivory. Every year during the summer innumerable fishermen’s barks direct their course to this isle of bones, and during winter immense caravans take the same route, all the convoys drawn by dogs, returning charged with the tusks of the mammoth, weighing each from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. The fossil ivory thus withdrawn from the frozen north is imported into China and Europe.”

In addition to its elimination by the thawing of the frozen grounds of the north, remains of the mammoth are procured from bogs, alluvial deposits, and from the destruction of submarine beds.[48] They are also found in cave deposits, associated with the remains of other mammals, and with flint implements. This creature appears to have been an object of the chase with PalÆolithic man.

Mr. Dawkins, reviewing all the discoveries, considers that its range, at various periods, extended over the whole of Northern Europe, and as far south as Spain; over Northern Asia, and North America down to the Isthmus of Darien. Dr. Falconer believes it to have had an elastic constitution, which enabled it to adapt itself to great change of climate.

Murchison, De Verneuil, and Keyserling believed that this species, as well as the woolly rhinoceros, belonged to the Tertiary fauna of Northern Asia, though not appearing until the Quaternary period in Europe.

Mr. Dawkins shows it to have been pre-glacial, glacial, and post-glacial in Britain and in Europe, and, from its relation to the intermediate species Elephas armeniacus, accepts it as the ancestor of the existing Indian elephant. Its disappearance was rapid, but not in the opinion of most geologists cataclysmic, as suggested by Mr. Howorth.

Another widely distributed species was the Rhinoceros tichorhinus—the smooth-skinned rhinoceros—also called the woolly rhinoceros and the Siberian rhinoceros, which had two horns, and, like the mammoth, was covered with woolly hair. It attained a great size; a specimen, the carcase of which was found by Pallas imbedded in frozen soil near Wilui, in Siberia (1772), was eleven and a half feet in length. Its horns are considered by some of the native tribes of northern Asia to have been the talons of gigantic birds; and Ermann and Middendorf suppose that their discovery may have originated the accounts by Herodotus of the gold-bearing griffons and the arimaspi.

Its food, ascertained by Von Brandt, and others, from portions remaining in the hollows of its teeth, consisted of leaves and needles of trees still existing in Siberia. The range of this species northwards was as extensive as that of the mammoth, but its remains have not yet been discovered south of the Alps and Pyrenees.

The investigation,[49] made by M. E. Lartet in 1860, of the contents of the Grotto of Aurignac, in the department of the Haute Garonne, from which numerous human skeletons had been previously removed in 1852, shows that this animal was included among the species used as ordinary articles of food, or as exceptional items at the funeral feasts of the PalÆolithic troglodytes. In the layers of charcoal and ashes immediately outside the entrance to the grotto, and surrounding what is supposed to have been the hearth, the bones of a young Rhinoceros tichorhinus were found, which had been split open for the extraction of the marrow. Numerous other species had been dealt with in the same manner; and all these having received this treatment, and showing marks of the action of fire, had evidently been carried to the cave for banqueting purposes. The remains of Herbivora associated with those of this rhinoceros, consisted of bones of the mammoth, the horse (Equus caballus), stag (Cervus elaphus), elk (Megaceros hibernicus), roebuck (C. capreolus), reindeer (C. tarandus), auroch (Bison europÆus). Among carnivora were found remains of Ursus spelÆus (cave-bear), Ursus arctos? (brown bear), Meles taxus (badger), Putorius vulgaris (polecat), HyÆna spelÆa (cave-hyÆna), Felis spelÆa (cave-lion), Felis catus ferus (wild cat), Canis lupus (wolf), Canis vulpis (fox). Within the grotto were also found remains of Felis spelÆa (cave-lion) and Sus scrofa (pig). The cave-bear, the fox, and indeed most of these, probably also formed articles of diet, but the hyÆna seems to have been a post attendant at the feast, and to have rooted out and gnawed off the spongy parts of the thrown-away bones after the departure of the company.

In the Pleistocene deposits at WÜrzburg, in Franconia, a human finger-bone occurs with bones of this species, and also of other large mammalia, such as the mammoth, cave-bear, and the like.

And flint implements, and pointed javelin-heads made of reindeer horn, are found associated with it in the vicinity of the old hearths established by PalÆolithic man in the cave called the Trou du Sureau, on the river MalignÉe in Belgium.

In the cavern of Goyet, also in Belgium, there are five bone layers, alternating with six beds of alluvial deposits, showing that the cave had been inhabited by different species at various periods. The lion was succeeded by the cave-bear, and this by hyÆnas; then PalÆolithic man became a tenant and has left his bones there, together with flint implements and remains of numerous species, including those already enumerated as his contemporaries.

The Sabre-toothed Tiger or Lion.—This species, Machairodus[50] latifrons of Owen, was remarkable for having long sabre-shaped canines. It belongs to an extinct genus, of which four other species are known, characterised by the possession of serrated teeth. The genus is known to be represented in the Auvergne beds between the Eocene and Miocene, in the Miocene of Greece and India, in the Pliocene of South America and Europe, and in the Pleistocene. Mr. Dawkins believes that this species survived to post-glacial times. It is one of the numerous animals whose remains have been found with traces of man and flint implements in cave deposits at Kent’s Hole, near Torquay, and elsewhere.

The Cave-Bear, Ursus spelÆus, of RosenmÜller.—The appearance of this species has been preserved to us in the drawing by PalÆolithic man found in the cave of Massat (Arieze).It occurs in the Cromer Forest Bed, a deposit referred by Mr. Boyd Dawkins to the early part of the Glacial period, and generally regarded as transitional between the Pliocene and Quaternary. It is also found in the caves of Perigaud, which are considered to belong to the reindeer era of M. Lartet or the opening part of the Recent period, and numerous discoveries of its remains at dates intermediate to these have been made in Britain and in Europe. Carl Vogt, indeed, is of opinion that this species is the progenitor of our living brown bear, Ursus arctos, and Mr. Boyd Dawkins also says that those “who have compared the French, German, and British specimens, gradually realize the fact that the fossil remains of the bears form a graduated series, in which all the variations that at first sight appear specific vanish away.”

It has been identified by Mr. Busk among the associated mammalian bones of the Brixham cave. Its remains are very abundant in the bone deposit of the Trou de Sureau in Belgium, and in the cavern of Goyet, which it tenanted alternately with the lion and hyÆna, and, like them, appears to have preyed on man and the larger mammalia.

Mr. Prestwich has obtained it in low-level deposits of river gravels in the valleys of the north of France and south of England, and it has been obtained from the LÖss, a loamy, usually unstratified deposit, which is extensively distributed over central Europe, in the valleys of the Rhine, Rhone, Danube, and other great rivers. This deposit is considered by Mr. Prestwich to be equivalent to other high-level gravels of the Pleistocene period.

The Mastodon.—The generic title Mastodon has been applied to a number of species allied to the elephants, but distinguished from them by a peculiar structure of the molar teeth; these are rectangular, and in their upper surfaces exhibit a number of great conical tuberosities with rounded points disposed in pairs, to the number of four or five, according to the species; whereas in the elephants they are broad and uniform, and regularly marked with furrows of large curvature. The mastodons, in addition to large tusks in the premaxillÆ, like those of the elephant, had also in most instances, a pair of shorter ones in the mandible.

Fig. 11.—Mastodon’s Tooth (worn). (After Figuier.)

Cuvier established the name Mastodon,[51] or teat-like toothed animals, for the gigantic species from America which Buffon had already described under the name of the animal or elephant of the Ohio.

Fig. 12.—Mastodon’s Tooth. (After Figuier.)

The form first appears in the Upper Miocene of Europe, five species being known, two of them from Pikermi, near Athens, and one, M. angustidens, from the Miocene beds of Malta. Mastodon remains have also been found in the beds of the Sivalik hills, and four species of mastodon in all are known to have ranged over India during those periods.

In Pliocene deposits we have abundant remains of M. arvernensis, and M. longirostris from the Val d’Arno in Italy, and the M. Borsoni from central France.

The M. arvernensis may be considered as a characteristic Pliocene species in Italy, France, and Europe generally. In Britain it occurs in the Norwich Crag and the Red Crag of Suffolk.

Species of mastodon occur in the Pliocene of La Plata, and of the temperate regions of South America; on the Pampas, and in the Andes of Chili.

The Mastodon mirificus of Leidy is the earliest known species in America; this occurs in Pliocene deposits on the Niobrara and the Loup fork, west of the Mississippi.

The remains of the Mastodon americanus of Cuvier occur abundantly in the Post Pliocene deposits throughout the United States, but more especially in the northern half; they are also found in Canada and Nova Scotia.

Fig. 13.—The Mastodon.

Perfect skeletons are occasionally procured from marshes, where the animals had become mired. In life this species appears to have measured from twelve to thirteen feet in height and twenty-four to twenty-five feet in length, including seven feet for the tusks. Undigested food found with its remains show that it lived partly on spruce and fir-trees. A distinct species characterised the Quaternary deposits of South America.

The Irish Elk.—The species (Megaceros hibernicus), commonly but erroneously called the Irish Elk, was, as professor Owen[52] has pointed out, a true deer, whose place is between the fallow and reindeer.

Though now extinct, it survived the PalÆolithic period, and may possibly have existed down to historic times. Mr. Gosse adduces some very strong testimony on this point, and is of opinion that its extinction cannot have taken place more than a thousand years ago.

It had a flattened and expanded form of antler, with peculiarities unknown among existing deer, and was, in comparison with these, of gigantic size; the height to the summit of the antlers being from ten to eleven feet in the largest individuals, and the span of the antlers, in one case, over twelve feet.

Although its remains have been found most abundantly in Ireland, it was widely distributed over Britain and middle Europe. It has been found in peat swamps, lacustrine marls, bone caverns, fen deposits, and the Cornish gravels. It has been obtained from the cavern of Goyet in Belgium, and from the burial-place at Aurignac, in the department of the Haute Garonne. Its known range in time is from the early part of the Glacial period down to, possibly, historic periods.

The Cave-HyÆna.—HyÆna spelÆa of Goldfuss—is, like the cave-bear, characteristic of Europe during the PalÆolithic age. It has been found in numerous caves in Britain, such as Kent’s Hole, the Brixham cave, and one near Wells in Somersetshire, explored by Dawkins in 1859; in all of these the remains are associated with those of man, or with his implements. This species is closely related to the H. crocuta of Zimm, at present existing in South Africa, and is by some geologists considered identical with it. It is, however, larger.

It appears to have to some extent replaced the cave-bear in Britain; we are also, doubtless, greatly indebted to it for some of the extensive collections of bones in caverns, resulting from the carcases which it had dragged thither, and imperfectly destroyed.

In a cave at Kirkdale, in the vale of Pickering, the bones of about three hundred individuals—hyÆnas—were found mingled with the remains of the mammoth, bear, rhinoceros, deer, cave-lion, brown bear, horse, hare, and other species. Mr. Dawkins,[53] in describing it, says: “The pack of hyÆnas fell upon reindeer in the winter, and at other times on horses and bisons, and were able to master the hippopotamus, the lion, the slender-nosed rhinoceros, or the straight-tusked elephant, and to carry their bones to their den, where they were found by Dr. Buckland. The hyÆnas also inhabiting the ‘Dukeries,’ dragged back to their dens fragments of lion.”

Notable Quaternary forms (now extinct) on the American continent are the gigantic sloth-like animals Megatherium, which reached eighteen feet in length, and Mylodon, one species of which (M. robustus) was eleven feet in length; Armadillos, such as Glyptodon, with a total length of nine feet; Chlamydotherium, as big as a rhinoceros; and Pachytherium, equalling an ox.

In Australia we find marsupial forms as at the present day; but they were gigantic in comparison with the latter. As for example, the Diprotodon, which equalled in size a hippopotamus, and the Nototherium, as large as a bullock.I may mention a few other species, the remains of which are associated with some of those commented on in the last few pages; but which, as they have undoubtedly continued in existence down to the present period, are external to the present portion of my argument, and are either treated of elsewhere, or need only to be referred to in a few words.

Fig. 14.—Mylodon robustus. (After Figuier.)

It must also be borne in mind that the linking together of species by the discovery of intermediate graduated forms, is daily proceeding; so that some even of those spoken of in greater detail may shortly be generally recognised, as at present they are held by a few, to be identical with existing forms.

The Hippopotamus.—The Hippopotamus major, now considered identical with the larger of the two African species—H. amphibia, has been found associated with E. antiquus and R. hemitÆchus of Falc in Durdham Down and Kirkdale caves, and in those at Kent’s Hole and Ravenscliff. It has also been found in river gravels at Grays, Ilford, and elsewhere, in the lower part of the river-border deposits of Amiens with flint implements, and in Quaternary deposits on the continent of Europe.

The Cave-Lion—Felis spelÆa—is now considered to be merely a variety of the African lion (Felis leo), although of larger size; it had a very wide range over Britain and Europe during the Post Pliocene period, as also did the leopard (F. pardus) and probably the lynx (Lyncus).

The Reindeer or Cariboo—Cervus tarandus—which still exists, both domesticated and wild, in northern Europe and America, is adapted for northern latitudes. It formerly extended over Europe, and in the British Isles probably survived in the north of Scotland until the twelfth century.

Its remains have been found in Pleistocene deposits in numerous localities, but most abundantly in those which M. Lartet has assigned to the period which he calls the Reindeer age.

Other Pleistocene mammals still existing, but whose range is much restricted, are the musk ox (Ovibos moschatus), familiar to us, from the accounts of arctic expeditions, as occurring in the circumpolar regions of North America; the glutton (Gulo luscus), the auroch (Bison europÆus), the wild horse (E. fossilis), the arctic fox (Canis lagopus), the bison (Bison priscus), the elk or moose (Alces malchis), found in Norway and North America, the lemming, the lagomys or tail-less hare, &c.

As examples of total extinction in late years, we may mention the dodo, the solitaire, and species allied to them, in the islands of Mauritius, Bourbon, and Reunion; the moa in New Zealand; the Æpiornis in Madagascar; the great auk, Alca impennis, in northern seas, and the Rhytina Stelleri, common once in the latitude of Behring’s Straits, and described by Steller in 1742.

Fig. 15.—Skeleton of Rhytina Stelleri. (From “The Voyage of the ‘Vega.’”)

The Dodo, a native of the island of Mauritius, was about 50 lbs. in weight, and covered with loose downy plumage, it was unable to rise from the ground in consequence of the imperfect development of its wings; it was minutely described by Sir Thomas Herbert in 1634, and specimens of the living bird and of its skin were brought to Europe. Its unwieldiness led to its speedy destruction by the early voyagers.

Fig. 16.—Rhytina Stelleri. (From “The Voyage of the ‘Vega.’”)

The Solitaire was confined to the island of Mascaregue or Bourbon. It is fully described by Francis Leguat, who, having fled from France into Holland in 1689, to escape religious persecution consequent on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, engaged under the Marquis de Quesne in an expedition for the purpose of settlement on that island. This bird also speedily became extinct.

The Moa (Dinornis giganteus, Owen) reached from twelve to fourteen feet in height, and survived for a long period after the migration of the Maories to New Zealand. Bones of it have been found along with charred wood, showing that it had been killed and eaten by the natives; and its memory is preserved in many of their traditions, which also record the existence of a much larger bird, a species of eagle or hawk, which used to prey upon it.[54]Rapidly approaching total extinction are the several species of Apteryx in the same country—remarkable birds with merely rudimentary wings: as also the Notornis, a large Rail—at first, and for a long time, only known in the fossil state, but of which a living specimen was secured by Mr. Walter Mantell in 1849: and the Kapapo (Strigops habroptilus) of G. R. Gray—a strange owl-faced nocturnal ground-parrot.

The Æpyornis maximus was almost as large as the Moa; of this numerous fossil bones and a few eggs have been discovered, but there are not, I believe, any traditions extant among the natives of Madagascar of its having survived to a late period.

The Great Auk (Alca impennis) is now believed to be extinct. It formerly occurred in the British Isles, but more abundantly in high latitudes; and its remains occur in great numbers on the shores of Iceland, Greenland, and Denmark, as also of Labrador and Newfoundland.

Fig. 17.—Rhytina Stelleri. (After J. Fr. Brandt.)

Steller’s Sea-cow (Rhytina Stelleri of Cuvier) was a mammal allied to the Manatees and Dugongs; it was discovered by Behring in 1768 on a small island lying off the Kamtchatkan coast. It measured as much as from twenty-eight to thirty-five feet in length, and was soon nearly exterminated by Behring’s party and other voyagers who visited the island. The last one of which there is any record was killed in 1854.[55]To the above may be added the Didunculus, a species of ground-pigeon peculiar to the Samoa Islands, and the Nestor productus, a parrot of Norfolk Island. An extended list might be prepared, from fossil evidences, of other species which were at one time associated with those I have enumerated.

Fig. 18.—Rhytina Stelleri. (From “The Voyage of the ‘Vega.’”)

In conclusion, I may point out that that excellent naturalist Pliny[56] records the disappearance, in his days, of certain species formerly known. He mentions the Incendiary, the Clivia, and the Subis (species of birds), and states that there were many other birds mentioned in the Etruscan ritual, which were no longer to be found in his time. He also says that there had been a bird in Sardinia resembling the crane, and called the GromphÆna, which was no longer known even by the people of the country.

Local Extinction.

Of local extinction we may note in our own island the cases of the beaver, the bear, the wolf, the wild cattle, the elk, the wild boar, the bustard, and the capercailzie; of these the beaver survived in Wales and Scotland until the time of Giraldus Cambrensis in 1188, and Pennant notes indications of its former existence in the names of several streams and lakes in Wales. It was not uncommon throughout the greater part of Europe down to the Middle Ages.The bear, still common in Norway and the Pyrenees, is alluded to, as Mr. Gosse points out, in the Welsh Triads,[57] which are supposed to have been compiled in the seventh century. They 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.” Mr. Gosse adds, “The Roman poets knew of its existence here. Martial speaks of the robber Laureolis being exposed on the cross to the fangs of the Caledonian bear; and Claudian alludes to British bears. The Emperor Claudius, on his return to Rome after the conquest of this island, exhibited, as trophies, combats of British bears in the Arena. In the Penitential of Archbishop Egbert, said to have been compiled about A.D. 750, bears are mentioned as inhabiting the English forests, and the city of Norwich is said to have been required to furnish a bear annually to Edward the Confessor, together with six dogs, no doubt for baiting him.”

The wolf, though greatly reduced in numbers during the Heptarchy, when Edgar laid an annual tribute of three hundred wolf-skins upon the Welsh, still occurred in formidable numbers in England in 1281, and not unfrequently until the reign of Henry VII. The last wolf was killed in Scotland in the year 1743, and in Ireland in 1770.[58]

The wild cattle are now only represented by the small herds in Chartley Castle, Chillingham, and Cadgow parks; the spare survivors probably of the species referred to by Herodotus when he speaks of “large ferocious and fleet white bulls” which abounded in the country south of Thrace, and continued in Poland, Lithuania, and Muscovy until the fifteenth century, or perhaps of the Urus described by CÆsar as little inferior to the elephant in size, and inhabiting the Hercynian forest, and believed to be identical with the Bos primigenius found in a fossil state in Britain.

The wild boar was once abundant in Scotland and England. The family of Baird derives its heraldic crest from a grant of David I. of Scotland, in recognition of his being saved from an infuriated boar which had turned on him. In England only nobles and gentry were allowed to hunt it, and the slaughter of one by an unauthorized person within the demesnes of William the Conqueror was punished by the loss of both eyes.[59]

The bustard, once abundant, is now extinct in Britain, so far as the indigenous race is concerned. Occasionally a chance visitant from the continent is seen; but there, also, its numbers have been greatly diminished. It was common in Buffon’s time in the plains of Poitou and Champagne, though now extremely rare, and is still common in Eastern Asia.

The capercailzie, or cock of the woods, after complete extinction, has been reintroduced from Norway, and, under protection, is moderately abundant in parts of Scotland.

In America, the process of extermination marches with the settlement of the various states. W. J. J. Allen records the absolute disappearance of the walrus from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and of the moose, the elk, and the Virginian deer, from many of the states in which they formerly abounded. This also is true, to some extent, of the bear, the beaver, the grey wolf, the panther, and the lynx.

The buffalo (Bos americanus) is being destroyed at the rate of two hundred and fifty thousand annually, and it is estimated that the number slain by hunters for their hides during the last forty years amounts to four millions. It has disappeared in the eastern part of the continent from many extensive tracts which it formerly inhabited.

Among the ocean whales, both the right and the sperm have only been preserved from extinction by the fortunate discovery of petroleum, which has reduced the value of their oil, and thus lessened considerably the number of vessels equipped for the whale fishery.

In South Africa, elephants and all other large game are being steadily exterminated within the several colonies.

In Australia, we find that the seals which thronged the islands of Bass’s Straits in countless thousands, at the period when Bass made his explorations there, have utterly disappeared. The bulk of them were destroyed by seal-hunters from Sydney within a few years after his discovery. The lamentable records of the Sydney Gazette of that period show this, for they detail the return to port, after a short cruise, of schooners laden with from twelve to sixteen thousand skins each. The result of this has been that for many years past the number of seals has been limited to a few individuals, to be found on one or two isolated rocks off Clarke’s Island, and on Hogan’s group.

The great sea-elephant, which, in Peron’s time, still migrated for breeding purposes from antarctic regions to the shores of King’s Island, where it is described by him as lining the long sandy beaches by hundreds, has been almost unseen there since the date of his visit, and its memory is only preserved in the names of Sea-Elephant Bay, Elephant Rock, &c. which are still inscribed on our charts.

The introduction of the Dingo, by the Australian blacks in their southward migration, is supposed to have caused the extinction of the Thylacinus (T. cynocephalus), or striped Australian wolf, on the main land of Australia, where it was once abundant; it is now only to be found in the remote portions of the island of Tasmania. This destruction of one species by another is paralleled in our own country by the approaching extinction of the indigenous and now very rare black rat, which has been almost entirely displaced by the fierce grey rat from Norway.We learn from incidental passages in the Bamboo Books[60] that the rhinoceros, which is now unknown in China, formerly extended throughout that country. We read of King Ch’aou, named Hea (B.C. 980), that “in his sixteenth year [of reign] the king attacked Ts’oo, and in crossing the river Han met with a large rhinoceros.” And, again, of King E, named SËe (B.C. 860), that “in his sixth year, when hunting in the forest of Shay, he captured a rhinoceros and carried it home.” There is also mention made—though this is less conclusive—that in the time of King Yiu, named Yeu (B.C. 313), the King of Yueh sent Kung-sze Yu with a present of three hundred boats, five million arrows, together with rhinoceros’ horns and elephants’ teeth.

Elephants are now unknown in China except in a domesticated state, but they probably disputed its thick forest and jungly plains with the Miaotsz, Lolos, and other tribes which held the country before its present occupants. This may be inferred from the incidental references to them in the Shan Hai King, a work reputed to be of great antiquity, of which more mention will be made hereafter, and from evidence contained in other ancient Chinese works which has been summarized by Mr. Kingsmill[61] as follows:—

“The rhinoceros and elephant certainly lived in Honan B.C. 600. The Tso-chuen, commenting on the C‘hun T‘siu of the second year of the Duke Siuen (B.C. 605), describes the former as being in sufficient abundance to supply skins for armour. The want, according to the popular saying, was not of rhinoceroses to supply skins, but of courage to animate the wearers. From the same authority (Duke Hi XIII., B.C. 636) we learn that while T‘soo (Hukwang) produced ivory and rhinoceros’ skins in abundance, Tsin, lying north of the Yellow River, on the most elevated part of the Loess, was dependent on the other for its supplies of those commodities. The Tribute of Yu tells the same tale. Yang-chow and King (Kiangpeh and Hukwang), we are told, sent tribute of ivory and rhinoceros’ hide, while Liang (Shensi) sent the skins of foxes and bears. Going back to mythical times, we find Mencius (III. ii. 9) telling how Chow Kung expelled from Lu (Shantung) the elephants and rhinoceroses, the tigers and leopards.”

Mr. Kingsmill even suggests that the species referred to were the mammoth and the Siberian rhinoceros (R. tichorhinus).

M. Chabas[62] publishes an Egyptian inscription showing that the elephant existed in a feral state in the Euphrates Valley in the time of Thothmes III. (16th century B.C.). The inscription records a great hunting of elephants in the neighbourhood of Nineveh.

Tigers still abound in Manchuria and Corea, their skins forming a regular article of commerce in Vladivostock, Newchwang, and Seoul. They are said to attain larger dimensions in these northern latitudes than their southern congener, the better-known Bengal tiger. They are generally extinct in China Proper; but PÈre David states that he has seen them in the neighbourhood of Pekin, in Mongolia, and at Moupin, and they are reported to have been seen near Amoy. Within the last few years[63] a large specimen was killed by Chinese soldiery within a few miles of the city of Ningpo; and it is probable that at no distant date they ranged over the whole country from Hindostan to Eastern Siberia, as they are incidentally referred to in various Chinese works—the Urh Yah specially recording the capture of a white tiger in the time of the Emperor SÜen of the Han dynasty, and of a black one, in the fourth year of the reign of Yung Kia, in a netted surround in Kien Ping Fu in the district of Tsz Kwei.

The tailed deer or Mi-lu (Cervus Davidianus of Milne Edwardes), which Chinese literature[64] indicates as having once been of common occurrence throughout China, is now only to be found in the Imperial hunting grounds south of Peking, where it is restricted to an enclosure of fifty miles in circumference. It is believed to exist no longer in a wild state, as no trace of it has been found in any of the recent explorations of Asia. The Ch‘un ts‘iu (B.C. 676) states that this species appeared in the winter of that year, in such numbers that it was chronicled in the records of Lu (Shantung), and that in the following autumn it was followed by an inroad of “Yih,” which Mr. Kingsmill believes to be the wolf.

There also appears reason to suppose that the ostrich had a much more extended range than at present; for we find references in the Shi-Ki,[65] or book of history of Szema Tsien, to “large birds with eggs as big as water-jars” as inhabiting T‘iaou-chi, identified by Mr. Kingsmill as Sarangia or Drangia; and, in speaking of Parthia, it says, “On the return of the mission he sent envoys with it that they might see the extent and power of China. He sent with them, as presents to the Emperor, eggs of the great bird of the country, and a curiously deformed man from Samarkand.”

The gigantic Chelonians which once abounded in India and the Indian seas are now entirely extinct; but we have had little difficulty in believing the accounts of their actual and late existence contained in the works of Pliny and Ælian since the discovery of the Colossochelys, described by Dr. Falconer, in the Upper Miocene deposits of the Siwalik Hills in North-Western India. The shell of Colossochelys Atlas (Falconer and Cautley) measured twelve feet, and the whole animal nearly twenty.

Pliny,[66] who published his work on Natural History about A.D. 77, states that the turtles of the Indian Sea are of such vast size that a single shell is sufficient to roof a habitable cottage, and that among the islands of the Red Sea the navigation is mostly carried on in boats formed from this shell.

Ælian,[67] about the middle of the third century of our era, is more specific in his statement, and says that the Indian river-tortoise is very large, and in size not less than a boat of fair magnitude; also, in speaking of the Great Sea, in which is Taprobana (Ceylon), he says: “There are very large tortoises generated in this sea, the shell of which is large enough to make an entire roof; for a single one reaches the length of fifteen cubits, so that not a few people are able to live beneath it, and certainly secure themselves from the vehement rays of the sun; they make a broad shade, and so resist rain that they are preferable for this purpose to tiles, nor does the rain beating against them sound otherwise than if it were falling on tiles. Nor, indeed, do those who inhabit them have any necessity for repairing them, as in the case of broken tiles, for the whole roof is made out of a solid shell so that it has the appearance of a cavernous or undermined rock, and of a natural roof.”El Edrisi, in his great geographical work,[68] completed A.D. 1154, speaks of them as existing down to his day, but as his book is admitted to be a compilation from all preceding geographical works, he may have been simply quoting, without special acknowledgment, the statements given above. He says, speaking of the Sea of Herkend (the Indian Ocean west of Ceylon), “It contains turtles twenty cubits long, containing within them as many as one thousand eggs.” Large tortoises formerly inhabited the Mascarene islands, but have been destroyed on all of them, with the exception of the small uninhabited Aldabra islands, north of the Seychelle group; and those formerly abundant on the Galapagos islands are now represented by only a few survivors, and the species rapidly approaches extinction.

I shall close this chapter with a reference to a creature which, if it may not be entitled to be called “the dragon,” may at least be considered as first cousin to it. This is a lacertilian of large size, at least twenty feet in length, panoplied with the most horrifying armour, which roamed over the Australian continent during Pleistocene times, and probably until the introduction of the aborigines.

Its remains have been described by Professor Owen in several communications to the Royal Society,[69] under the name of Megalania prisca. They were procured by Mr. G. F. Bennett from the drift-beds of King’s Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River in Australia. It was associated with correspondingly large marsupial mammals, now also extinct.

From the portions transmitted to him Professor Owen determined that it presented in some respects a magnified resemblance of the miniature existing lizard, Moloch horridus, found in Western Australia,[70] of which Dr. Gray remarks, “The external appearance of this lizard is the most ferocious of any that I know.” In Megalania the head was rendered horrible and menacing by horns projecting from its sides, and from the tip of the nose, which would be “as available against the attacks of Thylacoleo as the buffalo’s horns are against those of the South African lion.” The tail consisted of a series of annular segments armed with horny spikes, represented by the less perfectly developed ones in the existing species Uromastix princeps from Zanzibar, or in the above-mentioned moloch. In regard to these the Professor says, “That the horny sheaths of the above-described supports or cores arming the end of the tail may have been applied to deliver blows upon an assailant, seems not improbable, and this part of the organization of the great extinct Australian dragon may be regarded, with the cranial horn, as parts of both an offensive and defensive apparatus.”

The gavial of the Ganges is reported to be a fish-eater only, and is considered harmless to man. The Indian museums, however, have large specimens, which are said to have been captured after they had destroyed several human beings; and so we may imagine that this structurally herbivorous lizard (the Megalania having a horny edentate upper jaw) may have occasionally varied his diet, and have proved an importunate neighbour to aboriginal encampments in which toothsome children abounded, and that it may, in fact, have been one of the sources from which the myth of the Bunyip, of which I shall speak hereafter, has been derived.