EXTINCTION OF SPECIES. 
S57 
bably, the principal agents of destruction : but 
since man became the lord of the creation, his 
necessities and caprice have occasioned the extir- 
pation of many tribes, whose relics are found in the 
siirne sujierficial strata with those of species con- 
cerning which all human history and tradition are 
silent* 
The obliteration of certain forms of animal life 
(and perhaps the creation of new ones) a])pears, 
therefore, to be dependent on a law in the economy 
of nature, which is still in active operation. Of 
this we have a remarkable instance in the case of 
the JDodOy which has been annihilated, and be- 
come a denizen of the fossil kingdom, almost before 
our eyes. The Dodo was a bird of the gallina- 
ceous tribe, larger than the turkey, which existed 
in great numbers in the Mauritius and adjacent 
islands, when those countries were first colonised 
by the Dutch, about two centuries ago. This 
bird was the principal food of the colonists ; but it 
was incapable of domestication, and its numbers 
soon became sensibly diminished. Stuffed speci- 
mens were sent to the museums of Europe, and 
paintings of the living animal were executed, and 
copied into the works on natural history. The 
Dodo is now extinct : it is no longer to be found 
in the isles where it once flourished, and even all 
* In Great Britain, we may instance, as belonging to species which 
formerly existed in this country, and are still living in other parts of 
the globe, the beaver, bear, wolf, hyena. See. ; and, as wholly extinct, the 
7mA E/h, and Manmolh, with whose bones existing species of shells 
are sometimes found associated. Consult Dr. Fleming's British Ani- 
mals, 1 vol. 8vo. 1828: also an excellent Memoir, by the same author, 
in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, No. xxii. 
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