254 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



when it became extinct in Britain. The otter is so scarce in Great 

 Britain that the sport of hunting it is almost obsolete. Of the Falcon- 

 idee there are few living ex^nples left in the British Islands, and the 

 eyrie of an eagle is as rare in England as the nest of a thrush in 

 France, where the most melodious of songsters is valued only for its 

 flavor in a pasty by a people who make great pretensions to the cul- 

 ture of the sentimental. The noble blackcock and the ignoble black 

 rat appear to have vanished almost simultaneously from the British 

 fauna, and the fox is probably following the wolf in full conviction that 

 its mission is accomplished. Indeed the fiercest war maintained by 

 man against animal races, is waged against the carnivora and the rap- 

 torial birds. In the Biblical narrative, there are numerous evidences 

 of the abundance of beasts of prey in Palestine and Phoenicia, where 

 there is now scarce anything more rapacious than a fox to be found. 

 David's adventure with the lion and bear could not now be repeated 

 by any brave shepherd within a hundred miles of Jerusalem, and the 

 traveller on the Euphrates and Tigris need entertain but little fear of 

 those hungry lions which figure so conspicuously on the hunting friez- 

 es of Nineveh. Man not only lays the whole animal kingdom under 

 tribute to furnish him with meat and labor and entertainment and 

 knowledge, but he busies himself to disturb the balances. The rela- 

 tions of Sir Emerson Tennent and Dr. Livingstone make it pretty evi- 

 dent that the " half-reasoning elephant" is fast passing from the face of 

 the earth to be numbered among the extinct animals by the naturalists 

 of a century hence. When we read of the wanton slaughter of thou- 

 sands of elephants, with no object but the gratification of the passion for 

 destruction, we are tempted to lament that man possesses such com-, 

 plete dominion to subjugate, and such unlimited power to destroy. 

 " Had the motive," says Sir Emerson Tennent, " that invites to the 

 destruction of the elephant in Africa and India prevailed in Ceylon, 

 that is, had the elephants there been provided with tusks, they would 

 long since have been annihilated for the sake of their ivory. But it is 

 a curious fact that, whilst in Africa and India both sexes have tusks, 

 with some slight disproportion in the size of those of the females, not 

 one elephant in a hundred is found with tusks in Ceylon, and the few 

 that possess them are exclusively males." In Africa the hunger for 

 meat and ivory causes the destruction of the elephant to an extent 

 which threatens soon to extinguish the large-eared species altogether, 

 but with neither of these incitements, it is perhaps being extinguished 

 with still greater speed in Ceylon and India. There is a saving clause 

 in the fact now established, that elephants will breed in captivity, but 

 against it must be set the fact that in captivity it does not pay for its 

 keep, and is scarcely worth the attention of those who employ it either 

 for burden or draught. The elephant has too much character, too 

 high a reasoning faculty, to be perfect as^a servant; it has too many 

 whims, too many eccentricities of temper, and consumes far more food 

 than it earns in harness. Thus economically regarded, everything is 

 against its preservation, and when the wild herds disappear, there will 

 probably remain but few in a domesticated state, for unlike the horse, 

 ox, ass, and sheep, it is both unprofitable and unmanageable. 



Zoology has been somewhat restricted in aim, spite of its own breadth 

 as a science and the liberality of its leading cultivators. It owes most 



