350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in the first years of tlie present century they only existed in some 

 unfrequented northern islands. For thirty or forty years past, not a 

 sino-le one has been seen anywhere. The great auk figures stuffed in 

 some museums of natural history ; it is now an object of priceless value. 

 A bird of the size of a goose, having the upper parts of its body velvet- 

 black, its throat shaded with brown, and its lower parts white, the 

 auk presents zoological marks of peculiar interest j it is intermediate 

 between the lesser auk, a flying bird, which visits our shores in winter, 

 and the penguins of southern lands. The great auk formerly furnished 

 the people of the north with a large part of their food. Steeustrup 

 has found thousands of bones of these birds, gnawed, splintered, and 

 scratched, among the famous refuse-heaps of Denmark and JsTorway 

 which he has dug into with great service to information for history. 

 In many places, penguins made the principal food of the ancient 

 Scandinavians ; later in time, these birds and their eggs, gathered by 

 thousands in the breaks and crevices of the rocks, were a resource for 

 sailors, and of all that abundance there remains nothing, absolutely 

 nothing. Birds, as we see, have already lost many members of their 

 family. 



The destruction of the great animals, effected by men within a few 

 centuries, leads us to anticipate a serious impoverishment of Xature in 

 a more or less remote future. The extinction of a multitude of spe- 

 cies has taken place with deplorable rapidity in the Mascarene 

 Islands ; it is going on in many other parts of the globe. Singularly, 

 wherever Euroj^ean civilization penetrates, devastation begins, and 

 sooner or later is completed. The most industrious nations are the 

 greatest ravagers. A few thousand years more, and the whole earth 

 will i^resent a uniform and wretched appearance. 



The facts we have just recalled, as to beings exterminated by man, 

 lead the mind to reflections on the primitive state of our present world. 

 In the Mascarene Islands, in ISTew Zealand, a special fauna, entirely 

 different from that of the countries nearest them, proves that these 

 islands have remained isolated since the appearance of the animals 

 that inhabit or did till lately inhabit them. The presence of birds 

 unable to fly, or to defend themselves effectually in countries where 

 no dangerous enemies are to be feared, is the indication of a regular 

 assio-nment of oro-anism to determinate locations, for one who does 

 not believe in indefinite transformations perceptible only to the imagi- 

 nation. Finally, in seeing animals wanting effective means of locomo- 

 tion established in limited ranges, we are led to believe that each 

 species at first lived only on some very small part of the globe, and 

 that the varying distribution of individuals results chiefly from the 

 enlargement of locomotive powers. 



