I.] MAN AND DISTRIBUTION. 1 7 



different, however, is the case with the islands of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago, where the natives, who have a wonderful facility for 

 taming animals, have carried a species peculiar to one district or 

 island to localities where it is quite unknown as a native ; and in 

 consequence of this transportation and acclimatisation it is pro- 

 bable that several mammals have been given a habitat to which 

 they have not the most remote right. To the Malays is due the 

 introduction of the small civet known as the rasse into Mada- 

 gascar. Whether the dingo, or native dog of Australia, was intro- 

 duced at an exceedingly remote era by the original colonisers of 

 that island, or whether it is truly indigenous, is a question that 

 will probably never be decisively answered. It is likewise quite 

 impossible to say what part man may have played in the extermi- 

 nation of the large mammals that inhabited Europe about the 

 close of the glacial period, but it seems quite probable that he 

 may have had a considerable share in their destruction. Be this 

 as it may, the domestication of certain mammals has undoubtedly 

 had the effect of destroying the wild race, as is remarkably ex- 

 emplified by the two existing species of camel, of neither of which 

 do we know the original habitat. The original European wild ox 

 unless, indeed, the half-wild cattle of the British parks be its 

 direct descendants has likewise disappeared at some unknown 

 epoch owing to the hand of man. Although other mammals, such 

 as the quagga (Equus quagga}, Burchell's rhinoceros (Rhinoceros 

 simus), and the blaubok (Hippotragus leucophaus) have been 

 almost or completely exterminated by human agency in South 

 Africa, while the American bison has been practically swept away 

 from its native prairies, yet in all these instances there is a more 

 or less full record of the original range of the creatures. In 

 other cases also mammals have been utterly exterminated by 

 human agency from countries of which they were originally in- 

 habitants, as is exemplified by the disappearance from the British 

 Islands of the bear, the wolf, the beaver, and the wild boar within 

 the historic period, although they still survive in other parts of 

 their habitat. In these particular instances there is fortunately 

 full evidence as to the former existence of these animals in 

 Britain ; but it is highly probable that in more remote countries 

 mammals have been exterminated without any record being left 

 L. 2 



