THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST 
Vou. XXIX. September, 1895. ,. 345 
THE PRESENT STANDING OF THE FLORIDA MANA- 
TEE, TRICHECHUS LATIROSTRIS. (HARLAN) 
IN THE INDIAN RIVER WATERS. 
By Outram BANGS. 
The last two generations have witnessed such a destruction 
of animal life in this country that it is appalling to look ahead 
and see what the future has in store for us. Our larger ani- 
mals and birds are going with such rapidity, and the wilder 
parts of the country to which they have been driven are being 
cleared and settled so fast, that the end of many species, still 
common in places, is already plainly in sight. 
Man is, of course, the real cause, in almost every case, of the 
extermination of a species, although often the end comes by 
some natural calamity, as, for example, the tragic end of the 
Great Auk. 
When a species has become, through the persecution of 
man, reduced to a mere remnant that persists either from the 
inaccessible nature of the country to which it has taken refuge. 
or from the wariness the few surviving individuals have de- 
veloped, it takes but a small change in its surroundings to 
wipe it forever from the face of the earth. 
The winter of 1894-95 has been a most disasterous one and 
has shown us on how slight a change in temperature the life 
or death of a whole species depends. Two such winters in 
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