30 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



the poet used those words, but in one truer, and 

 wider, and infinitely sadder. Only when this sport- 

 ing rage has spent itself, when there are no longer 

 any animals of the larger kinds remaining, the loss 

 we are now inflicting on this our heritage, in which 

 we have a life-interest only, will be rightly appreci- 

 ated. It is hardly to be supposed or hoped that 

 posterity will feel satisfied with our monographs of 

 extinct species, and the few crumbling bones and 

 faded feathers, which may possibly survive half a 

 dozen centuries in some happily- placed museum. 

 On the contrary, such dreary mementoes will only 

 serve to remind them of their loss ; and if they 

 remember us at all, it will only be to hate our 

 memory, and our age this enlightened, scientific, 

 humanitarian age, which should have for a motto 

 " Let us slay all noble and beautiful things, for to- 

 morrow we die." 



