EXTERMINATION 225 



expected, that the bloodthirsty beasts make no greater impression 

 upon the stock of Rabbits in New Zealand than they do in the 

 mother-country, Avhile they find an easy prey in the heedless and 

 harmless members of the aboriginal Fauna, many of whom are 

 incapable of flight, so that their days are assuredly numbered. 

 Were these indigenous forms of an ordinary kind, their extirpation 

 might be regarded with some degree of indifference ; but un- 

 fortunately many of them are extraordinary forms — the relics ol 

 perhaps the oldest Fauna now living. Opportunities for learning 

 the lesson they teach have been but scant, and they are vanishing 

 before our eyes ere that lesson can be learnt. Assuredly the 

 scientific natiu-alist of another generation, especially if he be of 

 NeAv-Zealand birth, will brand with infamy the short-sighted folly, 

 begotten of greed, which will have deprived him of interpreting 

 some of the great secrets of Nature, while utterly failing to put an 

 end to the nuisance — admittedly a great one.^ 



Another noticeable case though free from the culpable blind- 

 ness just recounted is that which is offered by the Sandwich 

 Islands, where it appears that several of the land-birds are actually 

 extinct, while many more are doomed to disappear within a very 

 few years. In this instance the reasons assigned are the destruction 

 of the indigenous Flora, effected directly on the lowlands by 

 cultivation of sugar-canes and other plants, and on the forest- 

 covered hills by the large stock of horned cattle which not only 

 destroy the existing brushwood but check the growth of young 

 trees to replace the elders that yet stand. Of the species of birds 

 known to be extinct one, however, has met its fate from a different 

 cause. This is the Mamo (Drepanis), whose beautiful feathers, 

 as elsewhere stated, have led to its extirpation ; but no such cause 

 can be assigned for the extinction (of which the writer is assured) 

 of a plain -coloured bird like Chxtoptila angustiplimia, of which 

 perhaps not more than three or four specimens have been 

 preserved, or some other species that a recent collector has been 

 unable to find. 



An instance of apparent extinction more unaccountable than 

 the last named is that of the bird described and figured by Latham 

 {Gen. Synops. Birds, iii. p. 172, pi. 82) under the name of White- 

 ■vvinged Sandpiper, as ha^dng been found on Cook's last voyage on 

 the islands of Tahiti and Eimeo, where it seems to have been not 

 uncommon. Though it has been often sought no specimen seems 

 to have been obtained since, and indeed the only one known is in 

 the Museum at Leyden. Placed by Bonaparte in a separate genus 

 Frosobonia, it was supposed by him to belong to the Rallidx ; but 



^ The provoking part of the thing is that as shewn by Mr. Sclater [Nature 

 xxxix. p. 493) there exists a way, the discovery of Mr. Rodier, at once simple^ 

 natural, and efficacious of reducing the Rabbit-pest. 



15 



