No. 480] EXTINCTION OF MAMMALIA 



839 



deforestation of the hills and mountains, and this has largely been 

 the result of the unrestricted browsing of large herds of sheep and 

 goats, which has been going on since long before the Christian era. 

 Even now the goats can be observed in certain parts of Palestine 

 and Greece destroying the last of the forests and killing the seed- 

 ling trees. Destruction of the forests led to the washing away of 

 the soil and to the entire unfitness of the country for the support 

 of any of the larger Herbivora.^ 



"The mastodon, for example," observes Morris^ "needing 

 great cjuantities of herbage for its food supply, might, in cases of 

 severe drought, succumb to the food competition of the rabbit, 

 or some still more insignificant creature, which, spreading in vast 

 numbers over the country, devoured the sparse herbage and left 



its huge c()m])etitor to starve Thus hosts of Herbivora may 



have frecjuently perished in consequence of an insect assault upon 

 their food; and numerous Carnivora, thus deprived of their food, 

 may have similarly perished." 



EspcciaJbi Inicn.sc on Lsla fids. —This great change is paralleled 

 by the influence of the goats on islands, as cited by Wallace ^ and 

 r'almer.^ 



Palmer (loc. cif.) observes: "Sheep and goats when numerous 



regions. "^An instructive example o'f the llamage doue by g„ats 

 is that on St. Helena, described by Walhice;^ St. lleleua is a 

 uiountainous ishuid scarcelv .•■)() square mile, in exlrnt. and its 

 highest sunuuits reach an "elevation of 2.7(10 feet. At the time 

 of its discovery, about the hcginning of the sixteenth century, it 

 is said to have been covered by a dense forest : tonhiy it is described 

 as a comparatively barren rocky desert. This change has been 

 largely brought about by goats first introduced by the Portuguese 



' Osborn, H. F. "Preservation of the Wild Animals of North America." 

 Address before the Boone and Crockett Club, Washington, Jan. 23, 1904, pp. 

 1.5-16. 



= Morris, Charles. "The Extinction of Species." Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. 



' P:ilnuM-. '1\ S. • riie Danger of Introducing Noxious Animals and Birds." 

 )'farbook U. S Dept. of Agric. for 1898, p. 89. 

 ' Island Life, ISSO, pp. 283-286. 



