DISAPPEARANCE OF GREAT ANIMALS 367 



previously unknown epidemic disease due to a parasitic 

 organism such as those which we now see ravaging the 

 herds of South Africa found its way to the American con- 

 tinent. And it is quite possible that this was brought from 

 the other hemisphere by the first men who crossed the 

 Pacific and populated North America. 



To come to matters of certainty and not of speculation, 

 we know that man by clearing the land, as well as by 

 actively hunting and killing it, made an end of the great 

 wild ox of Europe, the aurochs or urus of Caesar, the last 

 of which was killed near Warsaw in 1627. He similarly 

 destroyed the bison, first in Europe and then (in our own 

 days) in North America. A few hundred, carefully 

 guarded, are all that remain in the two continents. He 

 has very nearly made an end of the elk in Europe, and 

 will soon do so completely in America. The wolf and 

 the beaver were destroyed in these British Islands about - 

 400 years ago. They are rapidly disappearing from 

 France, and will soon be exterminated in Scandinavia and 

 Russia and in Canada. At a remote prehistoric period 

 the bear was exterminated by man in Britain and the lion 

 driven from the whole of Europe, except Macedonia, where 

 it still flourished in the days of the ancient Greeks. It 

 was common in Asia Minor a few centuries ago. The 

 giraffe and the elephant have departed from South 

 Africa before the encroachments of civilised man. The 

 day is not distant when they will cease to exist in the 

 wild state in any part of Africa, and with them are 

 vanishing many splendid antelopes. Even our " nearest 

 and dearest " relatives in the animal world, the gorilla, 

 the chimpanzee and the ourang, are doomed. Now that 

 man has learnt to defy malaria and other fevers the 

 tropical forest will be occupied by the greedy civilised 

 horde of humanity, and there will be no room for the 

 most interesting and wonderful of all animals, the man- 



