grass and wild Celery, but also on the Penguins and their e^gs 
where they can get them ; the latter, however, on the south side°of 
the island, after being nearly exterminated, had learned to build 
in holes under the stones where the Pigs cannot reach them, whilst 
on the north side of the island the Pigs are not able to get down 
the Clifts to the Penguin rookeries, and the birds breed in safety 
without the precaution so cleverly adopted by their brethren oil 
the other side of the island. 
It is not my purpose to speak of the remarkable Avi-fauna of 
the Mascarine Islands in detail, but merely to refer to it as 
illustrating in a remarkable degree the conditions favoumble to 
the rapid extinction of species ; c.<j. a race of a very generalized 
typo and of restricted habitat, cut off from communication with the 
outer Avorld with which, when lirought into contact, it is utterly 
incapacitated to cope. This is pro-eniincntly the chai-acter of the 
Mascarine Islands and their inhabitants, and the work of exter- 
imnation has been going on since the visit of the Dutchman, 
A an ^cck, in 1598, to the present day.* 
^ It is not to birds alone that the Hog has proved .so destructive. 
Hie gigantic lortoise of the Galapagos, which has for the last two 
hundred years Avithstood the direct attacks of man, has been all 
but exterminated in those islands by the wild Pigs, which .m-eedilv 
devour boUi young and eggs; in fact man has done much to 
preserve this interesting relic of a past reptilian age by transiiortum 
It to other localities, in which, let us hope, the struggle for 
existence will not be so severe as in its old but no loimer safe 
retreat. 
There can be no doubt that the Cat has had a share in the 
destruction of many of the indigenous inhabitants of the Australian 
region, but the evidence against it is not so full as that against the 
Pat and the Pig. It is said, hoAvever, and I believe on good 
authority, that the Diduncnlus, a species of Pigeon found only on 
the small island of Hpolu, one of the Samoa group, Avas destroAred 
nil but a lew paii-s, by the Cats introduced into the island ; but 
that small remnant, learning wisdom, forsook their habit of nestiu" 
and roosting on the ground, and, taking to the trees, escaped the 
In Mauritius they liave just jiassed a laiv protecting all birds, excent 
Pa.»er domeMkus, an introduction AA'lnch is found very obnoxious 
A. Newton, in lit. Oct. ;llst, 18S0. 
