348 
PROGRESS OP ZOOLOGY. 
gaps in our classified system of transitions. That the dodo 
is utterly extinct there can be no reasonable doubt, for the 
region it inhabited has not only been thoroughly explored, 
but is now densely populated. The kiwi or apteryx is fast 
going in the same direction, and as the interior of New 
Zealand becomes a home for the white man that and other 
ferae must of necessity disappear. The last dinornis has 
probably long since perished, yet it could not be long since 
there were at least eight species of dinornis, varying in size 
from that of the bustard upwards, D. giganteus being vastly 
superior to the ostrich in magnitude. The great quadru- 
mana will probably be the next to disappear, for civilisation 
will not tolerate the existence of anthropoid apes, and the 
mere savagery of what is called “ sport” will extinguish 
them. The gorilla evidently occupies but a limited range of 
country, and that near the coast, and the tendency of civili¬ 
sation is to people the coasts everywhere with colonies of 
Anglo-Saxons, French, and Portuguese, respecting whom it 
is not easy to say which are the most active in the destruc¬ 
tion of indigenous fauna. The beaver still holds a few 
secluded weirs in the North of Europe, but no one can say 
when it became extinct in Britain. The otter is so scarce in 
this country that the sport of hunting it is almost obsolete, 
yet it is only thirty years since the finest otter ever seen 
in Britain was shot at Walthamstow, on the borders of 
Epping Forest, where it may still be seen in a very fair 
state of preservation. Of the Falconiclce there are few living 
examples left in these islands, and the eyrie of an eagle is 
as rare in England as the nest of a thrush in France, where 
the most melodious of songsters is valued only for its flavour 
in a pasty by a people who make great pretensions to the 
culture of the sentimental. The noble blackcock and the 
ignoble black rat appear to have vanished almost simultane¬ 
ously from the British fauna, and the fox is probably following 
the wolf in full conviction that its mission is accomplished. 
Indeed, the fiercest war maintained by man against animal 
races is waged against the carnivora and the raptorial 
birds. 
(To be continued .) 
