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ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



•AIM INC OF WILD GEESE. SIX THOUSAND YEARS OLD— FRIEZE FROM AN EGYPTIAN TOMB 



THE EVOLUTION AND DESTRUCTION OF LIFE 



By Willi 

 Curator 



I. Future Evolution 



ABOUT six thousand three hundred and 

 seventeen years ago a very excellent bird 

 artist painted the above frieze of wild 

 geese upon a tomb in Egypt. There are three 

 species, and with such care were the birds de- 

 lineated that every marking is distinct today, 

 and we realize that the geese which arc now 

 spending the winter on the Nile are the self- 

 same species as those which were trapped by 

 the Egyptians of the earliest dynasties. To us 

 this period seems long; but let us multiply it a 

 score of times, back to the life-time of the birds 

 whose fossil bones we now find in caves, and we 

 realize that even one hundred thousand years 

 ago. many birds differed little or not at all from 

 their living descendants of today. 



farther back than this we need not go. al- 

 though even eight or nine millions of years will 

 but take us to bird-like creatures which were 

 volplaning through the air on feathers as per- 

 fect as any we know. The main thought is that 

 all the emphasis of evolution of the animal 

 world is necessarily laid on past time. Upheav- 

 als and cataclysms there have been: whole fau- 

 nas wiped out by ice. by volcanic tire, perhaps 

 by parasites. But always there was a new start- 

 in;;' point; a continent from which the barren 

 places could be repopulated. Always there was 

 final cessation of the devastation; ultimate free- 

 dom for healthful competition: room for new 

 races to be run. 



The present, philosophically speaking, has no 

 meaning for us. It is better to consider it as 

 a temporal vanishing point, an impalpable eddy 

 in the stream of life, itself composed of the in- 

 whirling current of the future, passing out un- 

 ceasingly into the slack water of past time. 



In the distant past. then, all the organic evo- 

 lution of which we are cognizant has taken 

 place. The more immediate past — the historic- 

 al — is barren. The present is so fleeting we 

 can ignore it. The future is hopeless. Man 



AM BEEBE 



of Birds 



has come and man has conquered, and already 

 we see foreshadowed the beginning of the end 

 in the hemming in of wild life in preserves, and 

 in the ceaseless legal warfare over the actual 

 existence of many wild creatures. 



Until two scant centuries ago the scattering 

 of red men over North America could hardly 

 have interfered with any mutation or other va- 

 riational change of the fauna. Today, only a 

 fraction of the wild life survives, with abso- 

 lutely no chance ever again to give rise to any 

 new types, unless in forms like the house spar- 

 row, degenerately parasitic on civilization. 

 Throughout the Ear East the Mongolian hordes 

 are already brimming over, settling on neigh- 

 boring lands and islands, and clearing off the 

 jungle. The wild life of whole districts is being 

 wiped out that we may have tires for our auto- 

 mobiles. Our head-lines flare when one of our 

 own kind is run down in the crowded streets of 

 our cities: no one gives a thought to the small 

 folk of the jungle whose whole race has been 

 blotted out by the inception of these resilient 

 rubber rims of juggernaut. 



The historian finds the future of absorbing 

 interest; the morrow holding inexplicable sur- 

 prises. In the evolution of the Mexican people, 

 manana may yield a renaissance or a cataclysm. 

 But in spite of all the wonderful adaptations 

 of the classic Mexican axolotl — that versatile 

 salamander christened by the Aztecs — its race 

 is run. It can live the life of a fish, swimming 

 and breathing with gills : or it can become a 

 land creature with ambulatory limbs and lungs, 

 and produce its offspring under either condi- 

 tion. But its only concern at present is with 

 life itself. Its hope now is not for progress, 

 but for a few more years of mere existence. 



We cannot consider our domestic animals. We 

 may breed cows which will produce astounding 

 quantities of milk; hens may lay two eggs a 

 day : unheard-of monstrosities in the way of 

 fancy pigeons may come into existence. But 



