INTRODUCTION. 
or 
contemporaries of our great-grandfathers, became associated in the minds of many persons 
with the Griffin and the Phcenix of mythological antiquity. The aim of the present work 
is to vindicate the honesty of the rude voyagers of the 17th century, to collect together 
the scattered evidences which we possess, to describe and depict the few anatomical 
fragments of these lost species which are still extant, to incite the scientific traveller to 
search for further evidences, and to infer from the data before us the probable rank of 
these birds in the System of Nature. 
These smgular birds, which for distinction we shall henceforth designate by the 
technical name Didine, furnish the first clearly attested instances of the extinction of 
organic species through human agency. It has been proved, however, that other examples 
of the kind have occurred both before and since ;' and many species of animals and of 
plants are now undergoing this inevitable process of destruction before the ever-advancing 
tide of human population.2 We cannot see without regret the extinction of the last 
individual of any race of organic beings, whose progenitors colonized the pre-adamite Earth ; 
but our consolation must be found in the reflection, that Man is destined by his Creator 
to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth and subdue it.” The progress of 
Man in civilization, no less than his numerical increase, continually extends the geographical 
domain of Art by trenching on the territories of Nature, and hence the Zoologist or Botanist 
of future ages will have a much narrower field for his researches than that which we enjoy 
at present. It is, therefore, the duty of the naturalist to preserve to the stores of Science 
the knowledge of these extinct or expiring organisms, when he is unable to preserve their 
lives; so that our acquaintance with the marvels of Animal and Vegetable existence may 
suffer no detriment by the losses which the organic creation seems destined to sustain. 
In the case of the Didine, it is unfortunately no easy matter to collect satisfac- 
tory information as to their structure, habits, and affinities. We possess only the rude 
! As instances, 1 may mention the Cervus megaceros, or Irish Elk, and the Bos primigenius, or Urus, destroyed 
in ancient, and the Rytina Stelleri, or Northern Dugong, in modern times. 
2 Among animals whose doom is probably not far distant are the Bison priscus, or Aurochs, (preserved only 
by imperial intervention in the Bialowicksa forest, whence the Czar has lately enriched the London Zoological 
Gardens with a living pair); the Nestor productus, (a Parrot originally from Phillip’s Island near Norfolk Island, 
where it is now destroyed, though a few individuals, which refuse to propagate, still survive in cages); the two 
(not improbably ¢A7¢e) species of Apleryx ; and the almost equally anomalous burrowing Parrot, Sérigops habroptilus, 
of New Zealand; Xe. 
