Species of the Secondary and Tertiary Formations ? 255 



these organised beings whose remains are found in the 

 midst of diluvian deposits, and that with so much the more 

 reason, because these deposits likewise exhibit some traces 

 of the human species. Among a multitude of animal remains, 

 which have now their representatives in nature, there is a 

 pretty considerable number of which no vestige can be ob- 

 served on the surface of the earth. It may be asked how, 

 and by what circumstances, have these latter been destroyed, 

 while the others composing the generations with which the 

 earth is covered, have survived the causes by which the for- 

 mer have perished. 



These difficulties are greater still to those who keep in 

 mind the account in the Bible, according to which " animals 

 clean and unclean, fowls of the air, and every thing that 

 moveth on the earth, entered into the ark," and were thereby 

 preserved, according to the will of God. In order to make 

 this text agree with the facts, we may consider it probable 

 that, by the expression, all that moveth upon the earth, the 

 sacred writer meant only the principal animals, and not the 

 totality of the species. We have already indicated other 

 passages when the word all expresses only a part or portion 

 of the object which Genesis has thus generalized. If we 

 adopt this interpretation, admitted by a great number of 

 Bible commentators, all difficulties vanish, and the facts ex- 

 plain themselves. 



The lost species would thus be those which had been de- 

 stroyed by the deluge, as mentioned in the 21st, 22d, and 

 23d verses of the eighth chapter of Genesis. There is no need 

 of very extraordinary causes to produce the destruction of a 

 great number of living species, since there are many belong- 

 ing to the existing creations, and of which we now find no 

 traces on the earth, although certain of them had been per- 

 ceived in times not very distant from our own. 



Such is the case with the Dodo, which was seen in 1616, 

 in the island of Mauritius and in Bourbon, and of which some 

 remains exist in the museum of London, Oxford, and Ley- 

 den.* We no longer find this bird ; and since that tiuie it 



* It even appears that the Paris Museum coutains some remains of it. 



