BIG ANIMALS 269 



moa attained to dimensions almost equalling those of the 

 giraffe. In Madagascar, the mammalian life was small 

 and of low grade, so the gigantic rcpyornis became the 

 very biggest of all known birds. At the same time, these 

 big species acquired their immense size at the cost of the 

 distinctive birdliko habit of flight. A flying moa is almost 

 an impossible conception ; even the ostriches compete 

 practically with the zebras and antelopes rather than with 

 the eagles, the condors, or the albatrosses. In like manner, 

 when a pigeon found its way to Mauritius, it developed into 

 the practically wingless dodo ; while in the northern pen- 

 guins, on their icy perches, the fore limbs have been gradu- 

 ally modified into swimming organs, exactly analogous to 

 the flippers of the seal. 



Are the great aniniiUs now passing away and leaving no 

 representatives of their greatness to future ages ? On land 

 at least that is very probable. INIan, diminutive man, who, 

 if he walked on all fours, would be no bigger than a silly 

 sheep, and who only partially disguises his native small- 

 ness by his acquired habit of walking erect on what ought 

 to be his hind legs — man has upset the whole balanced 

 economy of nature, and is everywhere expelling and exter- 

 minating before him the great herbivores, his predecessors. 

 He needs for his corn and his bananas the fruitful plains 

 "which were once laid down in prairie or scrubwood. Hence 

 it seems not unlikely that the elephant, the hippopotamus, 

 the rhinoceros, and the buffalo must go. But we are still 

 a long way off from that final consummation, even on dry 

 land ; while as for the water, it appears highly probable 

 that there are as good fish still in the sea as ever came out 

 of it. Whether man himself, now become the sole domi- 

 nant animal of our poor old planet, will ever develop into 

 Titanic proportions, seems far more problematical. The 

 race is now no longer to the swift, nor the battle to the 



