Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/434

EXTINCT ANIMALS. the magnificent and  (qq.v.) are growing rare; the white-tailed (q.v.) is on the verge of extinction, except for a few preserved as captives; the and (qq.v.) are rapidly approaching the same fate; and the giraffe, on account of its incessant persecution by men in search of its valuable hide, remains numerous only in the remote waterless regions of the northern Kalahari Desert. A monkey (Colobus Kirki) of limited distribution on West Coast and the island of Zanzibar is now supposed to be extinct. See.

. The list of the larger animals lost to America since its rediscovery and settlement by Europeans is a long one. Whether or not a native horse lingered in small numbers in South America is a matter of dispute. If there was such an animal, it so quickly disappeared and was replaced by herds of escaped Spanish horses as to have left no trace of itself. The story of the extermination of the bison, of which the only remaining wild remnant at the opening of the twentieth century was a herd of about 250 in the forests north of the North Saskatchewan, is familiar to most readers. See .) Several marine mammals of our shore have suffered or are doomed to speedy extinction. The ease of the rhytina of Bering Sea has been noticed. Its relative, the manatee, is all but extinct in Florida, and rare elsewhere. The fur-seal of the North Pacific (see ) seems likely to die out within a few years, as also does the walrus, now wholly Arctic, except in the neighborhood of Bering Strait. There formerly existed in great numbers along the Californian coast a local sea-elephant (see ) which until about 1850 furnished profitable sealing. This ended in 1884, when what were probably the last living specimens on the coast were taken at San Cristobal Island, for preservation in the United States National Museum. The few elephant seals still remaining about Cape Horn represent an expiring race. The West Indian monk seal (Monachus tropicalis), once common around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, had been mainly killed off by 1850, and since then has lingered only on a small group of islets, the Triangles, north of Yucatan, where an accident may easily put an end to the small band.

In respect to birds, the New World has suffered much loss by the changes incident to civilization. The best known case, perhaps, is that of the great auk (see ), which was literally hunted off the face of the earth. It should be said, however, as in several other cases, that this species had a very limited distribution and was waning. Its migrations once extended southward along the west coast of Great Britain to the Bay of Biscay, in Europe; and in America southward to Cape Hatteras. Evidence of this is derived from finding its bones in prehistoric shell-heaps along the coast. It seems to have occasionally visited Norway, but it never was an Arctic bird. Its extermination was no doubt largely effected prehistorically, for within the time of records it has rarely been known to visit even the Hebrides, and its breeding places were few. It had bred abundantly from time immemorial on the Garefowl Skerries, off the southwest coast of Iceland, and might have remained there yet had not a volcanic disturbance in 1830 destroyed the islets. The survivors fled to Eldey Island, but as this was more accessible,

the colony was raided repeatedly by fishermen, and in 1844 the last pair of auks was killed. This ended the history of the garefowl in Europe. How long certain Greenland colonies lasted is not known. In 1534 the men sailing with Jacques Cartier to the discovery of the Saint Lawrence River found on Funk Island, off Cape Bonavista, on the northeastern coast of Newfoundland, a resort of these and other sea-birds, where the ‘penguins’ (for this term was first applied to this species, and later transferred to the Spheniscidæ) were breeding in thousands. The indiscriminate slaughter of these birds came to an end at an uncertain time, probably about 1840. According to a list published in England in 1888, 79 skins were known to exist, with 10 skeletons and 68 eggs. A third of these are preserved in public museums in various parts of the world, and the remainder are privately owned. When by chance these remains are sold very high and rapidly increasing prices are paid. At a notable auction sale of an ornithological collection in London in 1895, one skin in excellent condition was sold for 360 guineas (about $1800), and an egg brought 180 guineas (about $900). A very complete account of the history of the great auk, together with a full bibliography, may be found in F. A. Lucas's account of his expedition to Funk Island, in 1887, to recover relics of the bird, published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1888.

The next most conspicuous instance of the loss of an American species of bird is the case of the wild or ‘passenger’ pigeon, which within the last half of the nineteenth century disappeared (but not completely), in a manner not easily accounted for, from a great region in the central United States where previously it had been surpassingly numerous. Its history will be found in the article. The Eastern pinnated grouse (see article ) survives only in a few examples on the island of Nantucket, which, in spite of legal protection, seem destined to early extinction by semi-wild housecats. The Carolina (q.v.) is a small parrot once very common throughout the lower Mississippi Valley, now to be found (if at all) only in a few remote swamps of the Gulf Coast; and the large Cuban macaw (Ara tricolor) is supposed to he wholly extinct. Another bird of that region, the (q.v.), is probably wholly gone. It is believed that the Antilles and lesser of the West Indian islands have been deprived of many species of birds and other animals since they were first colonized, because recent collectors have been unable to find several species described by early writers, and others have become extremely rare. Newton mentions the loss of a species of petrel (Æstrelata hæsitata) of Dominica killed off by a carnivorous marsupial unintentionally introduced into that island; and the (q.v.) is extirpating a related petrel in Jamaica. Finally, the California (q.v.) has been added most lately to the list of vanished American birds, not a single pair apparently remaining, even in the deserts of Lower California.

For the decrease or disappearance of certain fishes, see and. . Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting (London, 1874); Harting, British Animals Extinct Within Historic Times (London, 1880); Wallace, Island Life (London and New York,