166 Prof. Sclilegel on some Extinct Gigantic Birds 



suppose tliatj in the economy of nature, the place of land-mam- 

 mals is taken by birds on both groups of islands ; and from this 

 we may perhaps infer, again, why the principal birds of those 

 localities exhibit such an extraordinary development and such 

 peculiar forms. Both these geographical groups, in common 

 with most other countries of the southern temperate zone, possess 

 a multiplicity of species, and each of them restricted to cer- 

 tain islands or proportionately small spots ; and these pheno- 

 mena are, perhaps, more striking in the Mascarene Islands than 

 in New Zealand. Both these geographical groups, the Faunae 

 of which (since the first principles of higher zoology are yet to 

 be determined), for the most part, belong to the past history of 

 the globe, deserve on this account, with the isles of the Pacific 

 Ocean as far as the Sunda Islands, more than other regions, to 

 become the subject of an exact investigation with regard to their 

 fauna. Every right-minded man will regret when he observes 

 how many of these strange and gigantic, but at the same time 

 harmless and even useful, creatures have been extirpated in the 

 regions above mentioned, and have disappeared for ever. He 

 will shudder when he every moment learns that this work of 

 destruction is yet daily being continued ; and he will but too well 

 comprehend that man entirely mistakes his earthly mission, and 

 brutally misuses his power, when he disturbs the harmony of 

 creation in such a deeply encroaching way that its original plan 

 is hardly to be recognized. Such researches, however, are beyond 

 the reach of private persons. It is the duty of a government 

 to interfere here. If this is not done, our descendants, instead 

 of ascribing to their forefathers that refinement which we think 

 we have, will regard us as barbarians who only understood how 

 to annihilate, but not to protect or preserve, what was entrusted 

 to us by the Creator. 



the progeny of wliicli furnished them on their later visits with provisions. 

 They also often introduced many other animals ; and by this means only 

 can we explain, for example, how the great land-tortoise of the Galapagos 

 has spread to Mozambique, and how Leguat, Herbert, and others speak, 

 some of them of deer, some of monkeys, or even of white Cockatoos with 

 red crests, among the productions of the Mascarene Islands. 



