INTRODUCTION. 
Amone the many remarkable results connected with Organic Life which modern Science 
has elicited, the chronological succession of distinct races of beings is one of the most 
interesting. Geology exhibits to us the vast diversity of organized forms which have 
supplanted one another throughout the world’s history, and in dealing with this remarkable 
fact, we are led to search out the causes for these exits and entrances of successive actors 
on the stage of Nature. It appears, indeed, highly probable that Death is a law of 
Nature in the Species as well as in the Individual; but this internal tendency to extinction 
is in both cases liable to be anticipated by violent or accidental causes. Numerous external 
agents have affected the distribution of organic life at various periods, and one of these 
has operated exclusively during the existing epoch, viz. the agency of Man, an influence 
peculiar in its effects, and which is made known to us by testimony as well as by 
inference. The object of the present treatise is to exhibit some remarkable examples of 
the extinction of several ornithic species, constituting an entire sub-family, through Human 
agency, and under circumstances of peculiar interest. 
The geographical distribution of organic groups in space is a no less interesting result 
of science than their geological succession in time. We find a special relation to exist 
between the structures of organized bodies and the districts of the earth’s surface which 
they inhabit. Certain groups of animals or vegetables, often very extensive, and containing 
a multitude of genera or of species, are found to be confined to certain continents and 
their circumjacent islands.’ In the present state of science we must be content to admit 
the existence of this law, without being able to enunciate its preamble. It does zof imply 
1To cite one instance among a thousand: the group of Humming Birds, containing hundreds of species, is 
exclusively confined to the American continent and the West Indian Archipelago. 
