ZOOLOGY. 



CHANGES AND PROGRESS IN ZOOLOGY. 



THE most satisfactory progress made in zoology of late years, has 

 been in the study and classification of the lower forms of life. The 

 aquarium and the microscope have given an impetus to the study of 

 the invertebrata, and such immense additions have been made to the 

 knowledge of this great section, that the mere weight of facts threat- 

 ens to separate it from the hitherto recognized connection with the 

 vertebrates, and so to constitute in zoology two distinct sciences, the 

 future paths of which will be separate though parallel. It is in this 

 section that we have most striking evidence of the abundance of life in 

 every region of the globe. The recent researches on the subject of 

 deep sea life, have enlarged immensely the geographical limits' and the 

 physical conditions known to be favorable to the production of animal 

 existence. 



In that still lower department of the Infusoria, the magnificent work 

 of Pritchard offers another example of the splitting up of old divisional 

 arrangements through the accumulation of facts indicative of distinct- 

 ive characteristics. 



But if we ever feel astonished at the abundance of life on the globe, 

 it is also pretty certain that some of its forms are fast passing away 

 from us, and that, not very far in the future, the zoologist will pay as 

 much attention to mammals recently extinct, as we do to certain fossil 

 forms, because they fill up gaps in our classified system of transitions. 

 That the dodo is utterly extinct there can be no reasonable doubt, for 

 the region it inhabited has not only been thoroughly explored, but is 

 now densely populated. The kiwi or apteryx is fast going in the same 

 direction, and as the interior of New Zealand becomes a home for the 

 white man, that and other ferae must of necessity disappear. The last 

 dinornis has probably long since perished ; yet it could not be long 

 since there were at least eight species of dinornis, varying in size, from 

 that of the bustard upwards ; D. giganteus being vastly superior to the 

 ostrich in magnitude. The great quadrumana will probably be the 

 next to disappear, for civilization will not tolerate the existence of 

 anthropoid apes, and the mere savagery of what is called " sport" will 

 extinguish them. The gorilla evidently occupies but a limited range 

 of country, and that near the coast, and the tendency of civilization is 

 to people the coasts everywhere with colonies of Anglo-Saxons, French, 

 and Portuguese, respecting whom it is not easy to say which are the 

 most active in the destruction of indigenous fauna. The beaver still 

 holds a few secluded weirs in the North of Europe, but no one can say 

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