448 



EXTINCTION OF SPECIES. 



[Ch. XLII. 



from 



animal 



m.an 



easily conceive wliat must happen wlien some new colony of 

 wild animals or plants enters a region for the first time, and 

 succeeds in establishing itself. 



Supposed effects of the first entrance of the polar hear into 

 Iceland. — Let us consider how great are the devastations 

 committed at certain periods by the Greenland bears, Avhen 

 they are drifted to the shores of Iceland in considerable num- 

 bers on the ice. These periodical invasions are formidable 

 even to man ; so that when the bears arrive, the inhabitants 

 collect together, and go in pursuit of them with fire-arms — 

 each native who slays one being rewarded by the king of 

 Denmark. The Danes of old, when they landed in their 

 marauding expeditions upon our coast, hardly excited more 

 alarm^ nor did onr islanders muster more promptly for tlie 

 defence of their lives and property against the common enemy, 

 than the modern Icelanders against these formidable brutes. 

 It often happens, says Henderson, that the natives are pur- 

 sued by the bear when he has been long at sea, and when 

 his natural ferocity has been heightened by the keenness of 



strataprem 



make 



-)f 



Let us cast our thoughts back to the period when the first 

 polar bears reached Iceland, before it was colonised by the 

 Norwegians in 874 ; we may imagine the breaking up of an 

 immense barrier of ice like that which, in 1816 and the 

 following year, disappeared from the east coast of Greenland, 

 which it had surrounded for four centuries. By the aid of 

 such means of transportation a great number of these quadru- 

 peds might effect a landing at the same time, and the havoc 

 which they would make among the species previously settled 

 in the island would be terrific. The deer, foxes, seals, and 

 even birds, on which these animals sometimes prey, would be 



soon thinned down. 



But this Avould be a part only, and probably an insignifi- 

 cant portion, of the aggregate amount of change brought 



* Journal of a Eesidence In Iceland, p. 27 . 



/ 



