22 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[February 1, 1893. 



too much decayed to be worth preserving ! In the year 

 1601 a Dutch ship captured twenty-four dodos for pro- 

 visions, and others soon followed suit, so that at this time 

 the bird was still common. It had, however, disappeared 

 before the close of the century. The last notice of the 

 living bird occurs in the journal of the mate of the Berldcij 

 Castle in 1681 ; and from the absence of any mention of 

 it by Leguat, who visited the island in 1693, we may 

 presume that it was already quite extinct. Although the 

 numbers carried away by ships doubtless largely aided in 

 its extermination, Prof. Newton, of Cambridge, is of opinion 

 that the dodo was finally killed off by the pigs which had 

 run loose over the island. 



Near akin to the dodo was the taller and more lightly- 

 built pigeon-like bird formerly inhabiting the island of 

 Rodriguez, and known as the solitaire {Pe^iijihaps). Our sole 

 linowledge of this bird in a li\'ing state is derived from the 

 accoimts of Leguat, who founded a colony on the island in 

 1691, and who has left us not only a good account of its 

 habits, but likewise an excellent portrait. When the solitaire 

 became extinct is uncertain, but there is some evidence 

 that it may have lingered on in the more remote parts of 

 the island down to the year 1761. These birds were 

 flightless, and the males much larger than the females, 

 their rudimentary wing having a peculiar horny ball-like 

 excrescence. I'p to the year 1861 our museums possessed 

 only a few bones of these strange birds, obtained from 

 caverns in Rodriguez ; but during the transit of Venus 

 expedition a large number of remains were obtained, from 

 which several more or less nearly perfect skeletons were 

 set up. 



Mauritius and Rodriguez also possessed another large 

 flightless bird, known as the Ajilunu/iitt'njr, and belonging 

 to the rail family. By the fortunate discovery of an old 

 painting, we learn that this bird had a long recurved bill 

 and a brownish-red plumage. It was living in 1615, but 

 seems to have disappeared by Leguat's time. 



Another extinct Mauritian bird was the geaut (Lciiuatia), 

 which was a kind of coot, described by Leguat in 1695 as 

 being equal in size to a goose. When it died out is 

 unknown. 



Our next instance of extermination relates to a very 

 different kind of creature, viz., the great northern sea-cow 

 {Uhilthw), a near ally of the existing dugongs and 



«a«iiS^ 



party were wrecked on Behring Island, where they 

 remained for some ten months, it does not appear that 

 they mflicted much damage on the sea-cows ; but soon 

 after, various fur-hunting expeditions were fitted out to 

 Alaska, the members of which depended solely on these 

 animals for food. So incessant, indeed, was the perse- 

 cution of the unfortunate creatures, that by 1754 they 

 had been exterminated on Copper Island, while by 1763 

 nearly all had been killed on their other haunt, and the 

 last individual of their race is supposed to have perished 



either in 1767 or tne following year. 



Skeleton (if Northern Sea-Cow 



manatis of the warmer seas. The rhytina, which 

 was far larger than its living cousins, attaining a length 

 of from twenty-four to thirty feet, was discovered by 

 the ill-fated navigator Behring, on the island which 

 bears his name, in the j'ear 1741 ; and had it not 

 been that he was accompanied by an excellent naturalist 

 (Steller), it is quite probable that the creature might 

 have perished without our ever having even heard 

 of its existence. This sea-cow was confined to Behring 

 and Copper Islands at the date of its discovery, whore it 

 existed in large numbers ; but there is little doubt that it 

 must formerly have had a much wider range, and that it 

 was even then a waning race. Although Behring and his 



Up to 1K83 three 

 skeletons in foreign collections and a few ribs in the 

 British Museum were all that remained of the rliytina ; 

 but since tliat date numerous remains have been obtained 

 from the peat of Behring Island. Fortunately, the 

 excellent description left by Steller, and some drawings 

 which have come down to us from the r.avigafor of 

 Behring's party, give us a very good idea of the external 

 form of the giant sea-cow. 



Continuing our chronological survey, the next exter- 

 minated animals that claim our attention are the gigantic land 

 tortoises of the Mascarene Islands, that is to say Mauritius, 

 Rodriguez, and Reunion. In Mauritius these tortoises 

 were first discovered by Van Neck, the discoverer of the 

 dodo, in 152i>, who relates that some of them were of such 

 huge dimensions that six men could be seated on their 

 shells. In Revmion, the voyager Boutehoc writes that he 

 took twenty-four giant tortoises from beneath a single tree, 

 in the year 1618 ; while Leguat, in 1691, states that in 

 Rodriguez there " are such plenty of land-turtles in this 

 isle that sometimes you see two or three thousand of them 

 in a diove, so that you may go about a hundred paces on 

 their backs." The Reunion tortoises, of which not a single 

 specimen remains in our museums, seem to have been the 

 first to disappear, although at what date is uncertain. 

 Down to tlie year 1740 these reptiles were still abundant 

 in Mauritius, but by 1761, when vessels were employed in 

 transporting them to that island from Rodriguez as food, 

 they had probably become scarce ; while in both islands 

 the whole race became extinct early in the present century, 

 mainly owing to the ship-loads which were carried away for 

 food ; although pigs have largely aided in the work of 

 destruction by devouring the- eggs and young. It may be 

 added that giant tortoises were formerly widely distributed 



over the world; 

 but that with- 

 in the historic 

 period they 

 have existed 

 only in the 

 Mascarenes, 

 in Aldabra, to 

 the north of 

 Madagascar, 

 and in the far 

 distant Gala- 

 In Aldabra, whence they have been intro- 

 duced into the Seychelles, they are now becoming very 

 scarce, although we believe they receive some kind of 

 protection. The Galapagos tortoises are, however, only too 

 likely to share the fate of those of the Mascarenes, all the 

 larger specimens having been already killed oft'. Indeed, 

 it IS highly probable that the Abingdon tortoise, remarkable 

 for the extreme thinness of its shell, specimens of which 

 were obtained in 1875 for our national collection, may 

 already be numbered with the extinct. 



With the pied starling {FmiUopus rariun) of Reunion 

 we return once more to birds. This beautiful species, the 

 sole representative of its genus, and distinguished not 



pagos group. 



