166 Prof. Schlegel on some Extinct Gigantic Birds 
suppose that, in the economy of nature, the place of land-mam¬ 
mals is taken by birds on both groups of islands; and from this 
we may perhaps infer, again, why the principal birds of those 
localities exhibit such an extraordinary development and such 
peculiar forms. Both these geographical groups, in common 
with most other countries of the southern temperate zone, possess 
a multiplicity of species, and each of them restricted to cer¬ 
tain islands or proportionately small spots; and these pheno¬ 
mena are, perhaps, more striking in the Mascarene Islands than 
in New Zealand. Both these geographical groups, the Faunae 
of which (since the first principles of higher zoology are yet to 
be determined), for the most part, belong to the past history of 
the globe, deserve on this account, with the isles of the Pacific 
Ocean as far as the Sunda Islands, more than other regions, to 
become the subject of an exact investigation with regard to their 
fauna. Every right-minded man will regret when he observes 
how many of these strange and gigantic, but at the same time 
harmless and even useful, creatures have been extirpated in the 
regions above mentioned, and have disappeared for ever. He 
will shudder when he every moment learns that this work of 
destruction is yet daily being continued ; and he will but too well 
comprehend that man entirely mistakes his earthly mission, and 
brutally misuses his power, when he disturbs the harmony of 
creation in such a deeply encroaching way that its original plan 
is hardly to be recognized. Such researches, however, are beyond 
the reach of private persons. It is the duty of a government 
to interfere here. If this is not done, our descendants, instead 
of ascribing to their forefathers that refinement which we think 
we have, will regard us as barbarians who only understood how 
to annihilate, but not to protect or preserve, what was entrusted 
to us by the Creator. 
the progeny of which furnished them on their later visits with provisions. 
They also often introduced many other animals ; and by this means only 
can we explain, for example, how the great land-tortoise of the Galapagos 
has spread to Mozambique, and how Leguat, Herbert, and others speak, 
some of them of deer, some of monkeys, or even of white Cockatoos with 
red crests, among the productions of the Mascarene Islands. 
