The Zoologist— Octobrr, 1868. ■ 1385 



The Death of Species. By Edward Newman. 



(Continued from S. S. 1358.) 



Desiring to establish conclusions from the past and present state 

 of human beings similar to those deduced from the world of animals, 

 I have endeavoured to collect facts from sources the most opposite : 

 1st, the investigations of the scientific ; 2nd, the conclusions of those 

 who view the coloured races as scarcely human, and, repudiating all 

 idea of a common origin, desire their extermination as they would that 

 of noxious beasts; and 3rdly, the conclusions and arguments of those 

 who regard the coloured man from a philanthropic point of view, and 

 who believe that all men are descended from one pair who trod the 

 earth 5872 years ago. I cannot but regard the first of these sources 

 as the most reliable ; the second allows too much scope for prejudice ; 

 and the third completely turns the table on the white man, and, 

 scarcely content with accepting the black as a man and a brother, 

 seems to look up to him with something approaching to veneration. 



As an example of what the calm and quiet philosopher has to say on 

 this subject of extinction of races, let us read Paul Broca on Human 

 Hybridity. He says, at p. 11, of the English Edition : " It is un- 

 doubted that several American races have been destroyed within three 

 hundred years; others, having been reduced to a few families, will 

 soon disappear. The Charruas were exterminated in 1831 by the 

 Spaniards of South America, root and branch. In 1835, four years 

 later, the English of Van Diemen's Land, after a horrible massacre, 

 transported two hundred and ten Tasmauiaus, men, women and 

 children, to a small islaud (Flinders), in Bass's Straits. In 1842, 

 after seven years of exile, the numbers of these unfortunates amounted 

 to fifty-four. This was all that remained of a race which forty years 

 previously occupied the whole of Van Diemen's Land, as large as 

 Ireland, and we may soon learn that none of them are in existence. 

 The Malays have entirely destroyed the black races who preceded 

 them in certain isles of the great Indian Archipelago. The Guanches 

 only now exist in a mummified state. The black and prognathous 

 race which occupied the isles of Japan before the arrival of the Mon- 

 golians, have left no other traces behiud than their crania imbedded in 

 the soil ; and it is easy to foresee that within one or two centuries all 

 the black races will have disappeared from these parts and have been 

 succeeded by Malayans and Europeans." The under-mentioned 

 scientific works corroborate these statements: — 'Natural History of 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. III. 3 A 



