ITS ANCESTORS AND RELATIONS 



41 



least modified are, compared to their former abundance, 

 in the most decadent state, while the most recently 

 formed, and greatly modified, and most progressive group 

 was until very recently bravely holding its own, in at 

 least one region of its former extensive range. On the 

 great plains of the African continent, zebras and quaggas 

 roamed in countless herds within the memory of living 

 man, and, except for his interference, there seemed no 

 reason why they might not have continued to do so for 

 ages yet. Explorers, hunters, and settlers, accompanied 

 by the introduction of firearms into their native haunts, 

 have, however, settled their doom. If events proceed as 

 they are now doing, we may safely predict that the time 

 is not very far distant when any living animal of the 

 entire group of Perissodactyles, except in a state of 

 domestication, will be a thing of the past. Under 

 the rapidly changing circumstances of the world, 

 caused by the spread of European civilisation, it is 

 not unlikely that the most ancient form, the tapir, 

 may yet survive all the others, simply because it offers 

 less inducement for the exercise of the destructive 

 propensities of the modern sportsman, who is more 

 responsible than any one else for the change now 

 taking place in the normal balance of animal life 

 on the earth's surface. In the next chapter this part of 

 the subject will be entered into rather more fully. 



