2 MOSTLY MAMMALS 
yet whether, sufficient specimens of such species are 
being preserved for our successors may be an open 
question. 
It is not my intention in this article to allude to the 
hosts of animals whose numbers have been reduced in 
such a wholesale manner during the century as to render 
them in more or less immediate danger of impending 
extermination, but to confine our attention in the main to 
those on whom this fate has already fallen. And here it 
may be mentioned with satisfaction that India enjoys a 
remarkably good record in this respect, for, so far as we 
are aware, it has not lost a single species of mammal, 
bird, or reptile, either during the nineteenth century or 
within the period of definite history. It is true that the 
numbers and range of the Indian lion have been sadly 
curtailed during the last fifty years, and that if steps are 
not promptly taken for its protection that animal may ere 
long disappear from the Indian fauna, But, at any rate, 
it has not done so at present; and even were it ex- 
terminated in that country, this would not mean the 
extinction of a species, and possibly not even of a local 
race, since it is not improbable that the Persian represen- 
tative of the lion (which is still abundant) may not be 
distinguishable from the Indian animal. Of large animals 
peculiar to India, perhaps the great Indian rhinoceros is the 
one that requires most careful watching in order that its 
numbers and its range may not be unduly reduced before 
it is too late to take adequate measures for its protection. 
We have said that the century is responsible for the 
extinction of no inconsiderable number of the world’s 
animals. But it must not for one moment be supposed 
that, within the historic period, no such exterminations by 
human agency had taken place in previous centuries. We 
