Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/433

EXTINCT ANIMALS. succumbed to changes in their limited circumstances. Thus the New Zealand group has lost several birds which were either confined to isolated and limited places or were helpless to escape from European colonists. A certain quail (Coturnix) and the owl parrot (Nestor) are gone; and of two species of kaka parrots (Nestor productus and Norfolkensis) none remains upon either Philip or Norfolk islands, where they abounded respectively previous to 1850. Several other Australasian species which spend their lives upon the ground are weak of flight, and, unaccustomed to such enemies, are rapidly disappearing under persecution by rats, and by imported ferrets, weasels, etc., introduced by the English settlers in an unwise attempt to subdue the plague of rabbits, which they had previously ‘acclimatized.’ One of the forms most threatened are the curious flightless (q.v.) rails, of which closely allied species once existed on Norfolk Island, on Lord Howe Island, and on one of the Chatham Islands. Dixon quotes Dr. Forbes in the statement that seventeen species of birds that formerly lived on Chatham Island have become extinct. The civilization of the Sandwich Islands has led to the destruction of several birds, one of which, the (q.v.). was sought for the sake of its rich 1 yellow feathers, used as an ornament of the cloaks of the chiefs, until none remained; another, related to the wattle-crows, succumbed to the clearing of certain brushy woods by cattle and goats. Tahiti seems to have lost, utterly a certain rail (Prosobonia leucoptera) and Latham's white-winged sandpiper (Hypotænidia Pacifica); and another shore-bird (Æchmorynchus) has died out in the Christmas Island group.

The most conspicuous examples of island birds extinguished since white men discovered their isolated homes are afforded, however, by Mauritius and the neighboring islands of the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, when rediscovered by the Dutch at the end of the sixteenth century, was inhabited by that singular and inept bird the (q.v.), relations of which (see ) have perished likewise in the islands of Réunion and Rodriguez. In Mauritius, besides the dodo, at least two species of parrot, a dove, a large coot, and a second ralline bird, abnormally flightless and long-billed, called Aphanapteryx, have become extinct. Réunion, also, once had other birds now lost, and so had Rodriguez. In Réunion, a somewhat abnormal starling, Fregilupus, existed until about 1850, while from Rodriguez the greater part of its original avifauna has vanished. There were a small but peculiar owl (Athene murivora), a big parrot (Necropsittacus Rodericanus), a dove (Erythræna, sp. ign.), a large brevipennate heron (Ardea megacephala), and a singular rail, besides other birds of which we know from the old voyagers.

The destruction of bird life in these islands was due not only to direct chase by man, but indirectly to the introduction of domestic or other animals. The hogs let loose in the Mascarene Islands finished the dodos and their relatives, and rats have done great mischief in Oceanica. Fires, too, have burned the coverts, destroyed nests and eggs, and killed much or all of the food of many species by consuming reptiles, insects, mollusks, worms, etc., great numbers of species of which are also to be counted among the

animals recently extinct. This agency was especially potent in the Antilles.

The turtle tribe presents a parallel case of extinction in the island inhabiting species of gigantic (q.v.)—isolated survivors of forms widespread during the later Tertiary age. During the historic period various species of the gigantic tortoises have been numerous on the Mascarene Islands, on Aldabara, a small island northwest of Madagascar, and on the Galapagos Islands, west of South America. At the end of the seventeenth century they existed by thousands in Mauritius (three species). Rodriguez (one species), and Réunion (one species). In Mauritius they were still abundant until about 1750, when they became so scarce that importations from Rodriguez were made by the shipload, as food for the garrison; and the continuance of these supplies (also sent to the Seychelles), together with the constant destruction of the eggs, exhausted the stock of tortoises about the end of the eighteenth century. Those of Réunion had vanished long before; and a single aged captive at Saint Louis, Mauritius, still alive in 1895, at an age probably approaching 200 years, is the sole survivor of the great herds of Rodriguez. Aldabara had originally four species, one of which, the elephant tortoise, only survives, and is very scarce. The Galapagos possessed several species, all good for food, and now destroyed with the exception of a few on Albemarle Island, and about 100 specimens living in various zoological gardens. See .

Africa has been the scene of extraordinarily rapid changes in faunal characteristics during the last century, and its later decades have witnessed the extermination as wild game, if not absolutely, of many of the largest and finest quadrupeds in its list. The herds of elephants, buffaloes, antelopes, and other grazers which thronged upon the plains and in the forests of South and Central Africa when Europeans began to colonize there, were past counting.

This wealth of game was ruthlessly destroyed by Arab and Portuguese traders and Dutch farmers, and then by English and German sportsmen, settlers, and hide-hunters—the last the worst agents of destruction, as has been the case in America. The result has been the depletion of game throughout all the more open regions, until now many species, exceedingly numerous previous to 1850, have become rare, and obtainable only in remote districts, while several species of the finest of African quadrupeds have totally vanished. One of these is the square-mouthed rhinoceros (Rhinoceros simus), none of which has been seen for several years. Another lost species, and one greatly to be regretted, is the true quagga (Equus quagga), a magnificent wild horse which originally roamed over South Africa, but was killed off by the Boers, first as food for their black servants, and later for the hides, until it utterly disappeared by 1875 or 1880. An even earlier date had witnessed the extermination of the true or mountain (q.v.), which lingered somewhat longer in the Abyssinian interior, but seems now entirely gone. Several of the larger antelopes have met or seem about to share the fate of these lost horses. The eland has been nearly extirpated by Dutch hide-hunters. The blaubok (Hippotragus leucophæus) has long been extinct, and its relatives