EXTINCT ANIMALS 



I shall not have space to explain it at any length, 

 but it gives the division of animals into groups 

 and their relation one to another. It shows 

 how they are classified, so that I need not refer 

 to the classification again. 



This picture (Fig. 15) is the portrait of an 

 interesting bird, the Great Auk. It is only 

 about 2^ feet high. It is like the penguin 

 in appearance, but it is really related to the puffin 

 and albatross. Fig. 15a shews the egg, which 

 from time to time in the newspapers, we 

 read of as being sold to enthusiastic egg- 

 collectors for as much as £300. Nearly a 

 hundred specimens of the egg of this bird are 

 known, for it only became absolutely extinct 

 some sixty years ago. It used to be found on 

 the rocky islands off the North of Scotland, 

 Shetland, Iceland and Greenland. But it has 

 now absolutely ceased to exist. It is very 

 difficult to say why it died out, for it had not 

 been hunted down. Since it has become extinct 

 we have been able to get to know about it by 

 finding its skeleton buried in sand and guano 

 in certain places on the coast of Newfoundland. 



Here (Fig. 16) is another creature, the dodo, 

 a bird which, like Steller's sea-cow, became 



24 



