440 



NATURE 



\Sept. 14, 1876 



these things are coming to pass ; for I am sure there are places 

 where what is very like them has already happened. 



You may ask why this is so ? why do these lands so speedily 

 succumb to the strangers from beyond sea ? One part of the 

 answer is ready to hand with those who have learned one of the 

 first principles of biology which our great master, Mr. Darwin, 

 has laid down for us. The weaker, the more generalised forms 

 of life must always make way for the stronger and more special- 

 ised. The other part of the answer is supplied by Mr. Wallace ; 

 for no one can have studied his volumes to much purpose with- 

 out perceiving that the inhabitants of oceanic islands and of the 

 southern hemisphere— the great Australian Region especially, 

 and South America not much less, are the direct and compara- 

 tively speaking little-changed descendants of an older, a more 

 generalised and a weaker fauna than are the present inhabitants 

 of this quarter of the globe, which have been, so to speak, ela- 

 borated by nature and turned out as the latest and most perfect 

 samples of her handiwork. 



Set face to face with unlooked-for invaders, and forced into a 

 contest vvdth them from which there is no retreat, it is not in the 

 least surprising that the natives should succumb. They have 

 hitherto only had to struggle for existence with creatures of a 

 like organisation ; and the issue of the conflict which has been 

 going on for ages is that, adapted to the conditions under which 

 they find themselves, they maintain their footing on grounds of 

 equality among one another, and so for centuries they may have 

 •'kept the noiseless tenor of their way." Suddenly man inter- 

 feres and lets loose upon them an entirely new race of animals, 

 which act and react in a thousand different fashions on their cir- 

 cumstances. It is not necessary that the new comers should be 

 predacious ; they may be so far void of offence as to abstain 

 from assaulting the aboriginal population ; but they occupy the 

 same haunts and consume the same food. The fruits, the herb- 

 age, and other supplies that sufficed to support the ancient fauna 

 now have to furnish forage for the invaders as well. Their 

 effects on the flora there is no need for me to trace, since Dr. 

 Hooker expressly made them one of the themes of that discourse 

 to which many of us listened with rapt attention a few years 

 since at this Association. But the consequences of the invasion 

 to the native fauna have never been so fully made known. The 

 new comers are creatures whose organisation has been prepared 

 by and for combat throughout generations innumerable. Their 

 ancestors have been elevated in the scale of being by the dis- 

 cipline of strife. Their descendants inherit the developed quali- 

 ties that enabled those ancestors to win a hard-fought existence 

 when the animals around them were no higher in grade than 

 those among which the descendants are now thrown. Can we 

 doubt that the victory inclines to the heirs of the ancient con- 

 querors? The struggle is like one between an army of veterans 

 and a population unused to warfare. It is that of Spaniards 

 with matchlocks and coats of mail against Aztecs with feather 

 cloaks and bows and arrows. Mala salus victis. A few years, 

 and the majority of native species are exterminated. But this is 

 not the worst. The species which perish most quickly are just 

 those that naturalists would most wish to preserve; for they 

 are those peculiar and endemic forms that in structure and con- 

 stitution represent the ancient state of things upon the earth, 

 and supply us with some of the most instructive evidence as to 

 the order of nature. 



"With the progress of civilisation it is plain that there will soon 

 be hardly a land but will bear the standard of a European 

 nation or of a community of European descent, and, as things 

 are going on, be overrun by their imports. If this were in- 

 evitable, it would be useless to complain. But is it inevitable ? 

 Is it not obvious that most of this extermination is being carried 

 on unwittingly, and may not some of it be avoided by proper 

 precautions ? If so, should not men of science make a stand, 

 and interest the ignorant or careless in the importance of the 

 subject ? I cannot divest myself of the belief that the course of 

 the next century will see the extirpation, not only of most of the 

 peculiar faunas I had in view a few minutes ago, but of a great 

 multitude of other species of animals throughout all parts of 

 the world. The regret with which I regard such extirpation is 

 not merely a matter of sentiment. Here sentiment and science 

 are for once on the same side. A heavy blow will be inflicted 

 on zoology by the disappearance of some of these marvellous 

 and peculiar forms. There is no one species of animal whose 

 structure and habits have been so completely investigated that 

 absence of the means of further examination would not be a 

 distmct deprivation to science ; and as what Science has done is 

 only an earnest of what the will do, we cannot say that the time 



shall ever come when the want of those means will not be 

 severely felt. It is then for scientific men, and for naturalists 

 especially, to consider whether they are not bound, in the in- 

 terest of their successors, to interpose more than they have 

 hitherto given any sign of doing. 



But outside this audience there are many who care little for 

 consequences like these. Such persons may, however, be im- 

 pressed by thinking that the indiscriminate destruction of animals 

 which, in one v/ay or another, is now going on, must sooner or 

 later lead to the extirpation of many of those which minister to 

 our wants, whether of comfort or luxury. The fur-bearing 

 creatures will speedily, if they do not already, require some pro- 

 tection to be generally accorded to them ; and that such protec- 

 tion can be effectually given is evident if we take the trouble of 

 inquiring as to the steps taken by the Russian local authorities 

 in Alaska, and now, I believe, continued by those of the United 

 States, for limiting the slaughter of the sea-otter and the fur- 

 seals of the adjacent islands to particular seasons. No one can 

 suppose that, even with the assistance we get from Siberia, our 

 supply of ivory will continue what it now is when the interior 

 of Africa is pacified and settled, as we can hardly doubt that it 

 one day will be ; and, unless we can find some substitute for 

 that useful substance before that day comes, it would be only 

 prudent to do something to check the wasteful destruction of 

 elephants. Many people may think that the continent of Africa 

 is too vast, and its animal life too luxuriant, for the efforts of 

 man materially to affect it. If we inquire, however, we shall 

 find that this is not the case, and that there is an enormous tract 

 of country, extending far beyond our colonies and the territories 

 of the neighbouring republics, from which most of the larger 

 mammals have already disappeared. There is good reason to 

 believe that at least one species has become extinct within the 

 last five- and- twenty years or thereabouts ; and though I do not 

 mean to say that this species, the true zebra, had any economic 

 value, yet its fate is an indication of what will befall its fellows ; 

 while to the zoologist its extirpation is a matter of moment, 

 being probably the first case of the total extinction of a large 

 terrestrial mammal since the remote days when the Megaceros 

 hibernicus disappeared. 



T.me would fail me if I attempted to go into particulars with 

 regard to the marine Mammalia. It is notorious that various 

 members of the orders Sirenia, Cetacea, and Pinnifedia, have 

 recently dwindled in numbers or altogether vanished from the 

 earth. The manatee and dugong have been recklessly killed off 

 from hundreds of localities where but a century or so since they 

 abounded ; and with them the stores of valuable oil that they 

 furnished have been lost. That very remarkable Sirenian, the 

 huge Rhytina gigas has become utterly extinct. The greed of 

 whalers is believed to have had the same effect on a Cetacean 

 (the Balana biscayensis) which was once the cause of a flourish- 

 ing industry on the coasts of France and Spain. The same 

 greed has almost exterminated the right- whale of the northern 

 seas, and is fast accomplishing the same end in the case of seals 

 all over the world. You are probably aware that an Act of 

 Parliament, passed in the session of 1875, was intended to put 

 some check upon those bloody massacres that annually take 

 place on the floating ice of the North Atlantic, to which these 

 creatures resort at the time of bringing forth their young, when 



" Sires, mothers, children in one carnage lie." 



But, whether through official indifference, or what, I know not, 

 the treaties with foreign nations authorised by that Act were 

 not completed ; and last spring, at the solicitation of certain 

 Aberdeen or Peterhead shipowners, the Board of Trade allowed 

 "one year more" of wholesale slaughter. Whatever other 

 nations might like to do, our hands at least should have been 

 unstained. It is admitted that in certain manufactures — that of 

 jute, for instance — animal oil is absolutely necessary. It is easy 

 to see that before long there will be very little animal oil forth- 

 coming. 



There is another class of animals with whose well-being the 

 interests of man are largely connected. It cannot be denied 

 that our fisheries are year by year subjected to an ever-increasing 

 strain, through the rapidly increasing population of these islands, 

 and are giving unmistakable signs of being unable to bear it. 

 But it must be admitted that the consideration of their case is 

 fraught with unusual difficulties. Commissions, either Royal or 

 Parliamentary, have been appointed one after another to inquire 

 into the facts and to seek a remedy, if one is to be found, for 

 the falling off. It is with great diffidence that I venture to pass 

 any criticism on the recommendations made by those Commis- 



