THE ANIMALS OF THE PAST 419 



There was once found in France a rude drawing (Fig. 

 242) of the mammoth made on ivory cut from its own 

 tusks, evidently sketched by a man living in that time. 

 This drawing shows that the mammoth was not extinct at 

 the time of the earliest man. 



Still another huge extinct animal resembling the ele- 

 phant, hut with very different teeth, is known as the mas- 

 todon. 



333. Extinct birds. In New Zealand and Madagascar are 

 found bones and eggs of huge birds (Dinornis and ^Epyor- 

 nis) which must have been twelve feet high, and which had 

 toe-bones as large as those of an elephant. These birds 

 are long since extinct, and they are not even recorded in 

 history. In Mauritius there once lived a heavy, clumsy 

 bird called the dodo. No living specimens exist, although 

 a few live dodos were known not more than one hundred 

 and fifty or two hundred years ago. It was unable to fly, 

 weighed as much as fifty pounds, and was covered with soft, 

 downy feathers like a new-born chicken. This bird has 

 become extinct in comparatively recent years. Several 

 stuffed specimens are still to be found in museums. 



334. Animals becoming extinct. In New Zealand there 

 may be still living a few individuals of another strange, 

 wingless bird called the Apteryx. This bird is disappearing 

 in our own times. Similarly in North America the bison, 

 or buffalo, which roamed the great Western plains in enor- 

 mous herds only a score of years ago, is now represented by 

 not more than a few hundred individuals living in a state 

 of nature. A few hundred others may be found in zoolog- 

 ical gardens and parks. The extinction of the North Amer- 

 ican buffalo is taking place in our generation. The great 

 auk, a large sea-bird of the Atlantic, has disappeared dur- 

 ing the present century. The sea-cow (Hydrodamalis), a 

 huge, herbivorous creature, living in the sea and feeding 

 on seaweed, was one hundred and fifty years ago abundant 

 about the Commander Islands, off Kamchatka. It was used 



