Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/229

Rh colonization, and the intentional or accidental importation of plants and animals, a very rapid change is affecting the character of the indigenous life of numerous districts. This is notably the case in oceanic islands, the area of which is often extremely limited, and whose native forms have been found to be specially liable to be swamped by the immigrants; but it is just those spots which are of especial interest to the naturalist, on account of their isolation from the great land areas. Thus the flora and fauna of many of the most interesting districts for the field-naturalist are in our day becoming largely exterminated before they have been adequately recorded. The investigation of disappearing animals and plants can, in many cases, be undertaken by us alone—and even now much has disappeared and more is fast passing away. Attention has been called to the spread of land species by the agency of man by Mr. L. O. Howard, of Washington. In this very interesting and suggestive article he deals more especially with insects and most of his illustrations are drawn from America.

In other parts of the world the same dislocation of the indigenous fauna is taking place and even the flora is also becoming modified, for example, Sir Walter Buller, F.R.S., has stated that all the more interesting birds of New Zealand are passing away. Not a few species have already been exterminated, many more are on the borderland, so to speak, of final extinction; and some even of the commonest birds of thirty years ago have become so scarce that it is difficult to know where to look for them. The saddest part of it is that it seems hopeless now to arrest the evil, owing to the introduction of stoats, weasels and ferrets that are now swarming over every part of the country and defy all attempts to check their increase. The following facts speaks for themselves. No specimen of the once very abundant New Zealand quail (Coturnix novæ zealandiæ) has been seen for a quarter of a century: of the celebrated Notornis mantelli only three perfect specimens have been obtained; it is probably extinct. Even the extremely abundant woodhens (Ocydromus sp.) are on the verge of extinction, as are the various species of kiwi (Apteryx), the great ground parrot (Stingops habroptilus), the stitch-bird (Pogonornis cincta), the bell-bird, the native robin, and many others, not forgetting the beautiful huia or mountain starling (Heteralocha acutirostris), celebrated in Maori song and tradition. The huia, which is greatly prized by the Maoris on account of its tail feathers—for personal adornment and as a badge of tribal mourning—has, from time immemorial, been confined to a narrow strip of mostly mountainous wooded country forming part of the old Wellington Province.