EXTINCT SPECIES. 153 



The dodo will be seen no more ; the race has fleeted away. 

 Among birds, the emeu, the cassowary, and the apterix are 

 species rapidly vanishing: amongst quadrupeds, the kan- 

 garoo, the platypus : others slowly, but not less surely. After 

 a while they will be gone from the earth wholly, as bears, 

 wolves, mammoths, and hyenas have gone from our own 

 islands. The Bos primigenus, or great wild bull, was common 

 in Germany when Julius Ca?sar flourished. The race has 

 become wholly extinct, if, indeed, not incorporated with the 

 breed of large tame oxen of Northern Europe. The unis 

 would have become extinct but for the care taken by Kussian 

 emperors to preserve a remnant in Lithuanian forests. The 

 beaver built his mud huts along the Saone and Rhone up to 

 the last few generations of man ; and when Hannibal passed 

 through Gaul on his way to Italy, beavers in Gaul were 

 common. Thus have animals migrated or died out ; passed 

 away, the balance of life remaining. 



Man has gone on conquering; now exterminating, now 

 subjecting. Save the fishes of the sea and the birds of the 

 air, the time will perhaps come when creatures will have to 

 choose between subjection or death. Ostriches would seem 

 to be reserved for the first alternative, seeing that in South 

 Africa, in Southern France, and Italy, these birds have lately 

 been bred domiciled into tame fowls in behalf of their 

 feathers. Very profitable would ostrich-farming seem to be. 

 These giant birds want no food but grass, and the yearly 

 feather-yield of each adult ostrich realises about twenty-five 

 pounds sterling. 



