EXTERMINATED ANIMALS 7 



were used for the cloaks of the native chiefs. About four 

 specimens are known to be preserved in museums. 



Of birds that have been locally exterminated, such as 

 the burrowing petrel {Oestrelata haesitata), known in the 

 Antilles as the diablotin, it is not our intention to speak 

 on this occasion. This article may accordingly be fitly 

 brought to a close by an extract from Prof. A. Newton's 

 " Dictionary of Birds," referring to two instances where 

 species may have perished within the century without 

 having ever come definitely under the notice of ornitho- 

 logists. After stating that one Ledru accompanied an 

 expedition dispatched by the French Government in 1796 to 

 the West Indies, the Professor proceeds to observe that 

 this explorer " gives a list of the birds he found in the 

 islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix. He enumerates 

 fourteen kinds of birds as having occurred to him then. 

 Of these there is now no trace of eight of the number ; 

 and, if he is to be believed, it must be supposed that 

 within fifty or sixty years of his having been assured 

 of their existence they have become extinct. ... If this 

 be not enough, we may cite the case of the French islands 

 of Guadeloupe and Martinique, in which, according to 

 M. Guyon, there were once found six species of Psittaci, 

 all now exterminated ; and it may possibly be that the 

 macaws, stated by Messrs. Gosse and March to have 

 formerly frequented certain parts of Jamaica, but not 

 apparently noticed there for many years, have fallen victims 

 to colonisation and its consequences." 



