RECENT LITERATURE 
41 
lations protecting the beaver and the pine marten are not very generally enforced 
and many of these animals will be taken this season. The territory in Alaska is 
very large and the money appropriated for protection of game and fur animals 
is very little, amounting this season to much less than the value of illegally caught 
furs that were seized. — A. H. Twitchell, Flat, Iditarod Region, Alaska. 
RECENT LITERATURE 
Fitzsimons, F. W. The Natural History of South Africa. Mammals. 
Vol. 3, pp. i-xiii, 1-278, 47 plates; Vol. 4, pp. i-xix, 1-271, 30 plates. London; 
Longmans, Green and Co., 1920. 
The last volumes of this work, copies of which have recently reached America, 
are filled with interesting facts in the history of the mammals of South Africa, 
presented in an original and unusually readable form. The third volume, deal- 
ing with the ungulates, pictures a sad record of extermination rarely equalled in 
historical times in any part of the world. It is a vivid reminder of the passing 
of the Age of Mammals. While the solitary and smaller antelopes have held out 
to a surprising degree, even in settled communities, the gregarious and conspicu- 
ous species have been literally swept away since the advent of the white man. 
Of the bluebuck it is stated that the last known individual was killed as early as 
1799 or 1800, and that only five specimens are preserved in the museums of the 
world. A few quaggas existed until about 1878. The typical form of BurchelFs 
zebra is extinct, or nearly so; but one of its subspecies, threatened with the same 
fate, has been saved by the establishment of game reservations and by the enforce- 
mence of strict government regulations. The beautiful bontebok, which formerly 
occurred in tens of thousands, is extinct in a wild state; only three or four hundred 
animals, some of which are mixed with blesbok blood, remain today on carefully 
guarded preserves. The blesbok, too, has virtually ceased to exist as a wild crea- 
ture, but is said to be in no danger of extermination as it is kept in numbers on 
fenced farms; the meat commands a good price in the markets and there is a 
regular demand for specimens. The white-tailed gnu exists only under similar- 
conditions. 
The typical white rhinoceros has been reduced to about 20 individuals on the- 
game reserves in Zululand, while possibly “one or two may exist in remote parts; 
of southern Rhodesia,” where one, supposed to be the last, was shot in 1895. The 
case of the elephants of the Addo Bush, practically the only survivors of the South 
African herds, is reviewed at some length. It has been variously estimated that 
these numbered from 90 to 150 animals; but 75 are now being killed under official 
direction, and it has been predicted that within four years the elephant will be 
extinct in South Africa. In spite of this harrowing detail of man’s destruction 
of interesting creatures, the accounts of the former abundance of the gregarious 
species are fascinating, and particularly interesting are the stories of the early 
migrations of the enormous herds of springboks. The hippopotamus is known 
to migrate at sea between the mouths of rivers. 
The fourth volume includes accounts of the insectivores, rodents, cetaceans, 
the elephant-seal, pangolin, and aard-vark. It is stated: “Shrews vary in their 
