28 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



avail him. He may scorn the horse and his rider, 

 what time he lifts himself up, but the cowardly 

 murderous methods of science, and a systematic 

 war of extermination, have left him no chance. 

 And with the rhea go the flamingo, antique and 

 splendid ; and the swans in their bridal plumage ; 

 and the rufous tinamou sweet and mournful melo- 

 dist of the eventide ; and the noble crested screamer, 

 that clarion-voiced watch-bird of the night in the 

 wilderness. These, and the other large avians, to- 

 gether with the finest of the mammalians, will 

 shortly be lost to thepanpas utterly as the great 

 bustard is to England, and as the wild turkey and 

 bison and many other species will shortly be lost to 

 North America. What a wail there would be in the 

 world if a sudden destruction were to fall on the 

 accumulated art-treasures of the National Gallery, 

 and the marbles in the British Museum, and the 

 contents of the King's Library the old prints and 

 mediaeval illuminations ! And these are only the 

 work of human hands and brains impressions of 

 individual genius on perishable material, immortal 

 only in the sense that the silken cocoon of the dead 

 moth is so, because they continue to exist and shine 

 when the artist's hands and brain are dust : and 

 man has the long day of life before him in which to 

 do again things like these, and better than these, if 

 there is any truth in evolution. But the forms of 

 life in the two higher vertebrate classes are Nature's 

 most perfect work ; and the life of even a single 

 species is of incalculably greater value to mankind, 

 for what it teaches and would continue to teach, 

 than all the chiselled marbles and painted canvases 



