476 Miscelluneous Intelligence. 
that d mes, it wou nly prudent to do something to 
k the wasteful destruction of elephants. Many people may 
think that the continent of Africa is too and its animal 
inquire, however, we shall find that this is not the case, and 
that there is an enormous tract of country, extending far beyond 
our colonies and the territories of the neighboring republics, from 
which most of the larger mammals have already disappeared. 
There is good reason to believe that at least one species has be- 
come extinct within the last five-and-twenty years or thereabouts; 
and though I do not mean to say that this species, the true zebra, 
had any economic value, yet its fate is an indication of what will 
befall its fellows; while to the zoologist its extirpation is a matter 
of moment, being probably the first case of the total extinction of 
a large terrestrial mammal since the remote days when the Mega- 
ceros hi 
| 
The manatee and dugong have been recklessly killed off from hun- 
dreds of localities where but a centur or so since they abounded ; 
and with them the stores of valuable oil that they furnish have 
been lost. That very remarkable Sirenian, the huge Rhytina gigas. 
which was once the cause of a flourishing industry on the coasts of 
France and Spain. e same greed has almost exterminated the 
right-whale of the northern seas, and is fast accomplishing the 
“Sires, mothers, children in one carnage lie.” 
But, whether through official indifference, or what; I know not, 
the treaties with foreign nations authorized by that Act were not 
oming. 2 
d at the session of the National Academ| 3 
os neces held at Philadelphia, Pa., October 17th, 18th, and 19t! 
