|
PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY -- VOLUME 2 |
|
CHAPTER 9 The circumstances which constitute the Stations of Animals are changeable – Extension of the range of one species alters the condition of others – Supposed effects which may have followed the first entrance of the Polar Bears into Iceland – The first appearance of a new species in a region causes the chief disturbance – Changes known to have resulted from the advance of human population – Whether man increases the productive powers of the earth – Indigenous Quadrupeds and Birds of Great Britain known to have been extirpated – Extinction of the Dodo – Rapid propagation of the domestic Quadrupeds over the American Continent – Power of exterminating species no prerogative of Man – Concluding Remarks WE have seen that the stations of animals and plants depend not merely on the influence of external agents in the inanimate world, and the relations of that influence to the structure and habits of each species, but also on the state of the contemporary living beings which inhabit the same part of the globe. In other words, the possibility of the existence of a certain species in a given locality, or of its thriving more or less therein, is determined not merely by temperature, humidity, soil, elevation, and other circumstances of the like kind, but also by the existence or non-existence, the abundance or scarcity, of a particular assemblage of other plants and animals in the same region. If we show that both these classes of circumstances, whether relating to the animate or inanimate creation, are perpetually changing, it will follow that species are subject to incessant vicissitudes; and if the result of these mutations, in the course of ages, be so great as materially to affect the general condition of stations, it will follow that the successive destruction of species must now be part of the regular and constant order of Nature. It will be desirable, first, to consider the effects which every extension of the numbers or geographical range of one species must produce on the condition of others inhabiting the same regions. When the necessary consequences of such extensions have been fully explained, the reader will be prepared to appreciate the important influence which slight modifications in the physical geography of the globe may exert on the condition of organic beings. In the first place it is clear, that when any region is stocked with as great a variety of animals and plants as the productive powers of that region will enable it to support, the addition of any new species, or the pe1'manent numerical increase of one previously established, must always be attended either by the local extermination or the numerical decrease of some other species. There may undoubtedly be considerable fluctuations from year to year, and the equilibrium may be again restored without any permanent alteration; for in particular seasons a greater supply of heat, humidity, or other causes may augment the total quantity of vegetable produce, in which case all the animals subsisting on vegetable food, and others which prey on them, may multiply without anyone species giving way; but whenever the aggregate quantity of vegetable produce remains unaltered, the progressive increase of one animal or plant implies the decline of another. All agriculturists and gardeners are familiar with the fact, that when weeds intrude themselves into the space appropriated to cultivated species, the latter are starved in their growth or stifled. If we abandon for a short time a field or garden, a host of indigenous plants, The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory, pour in and obtain the mastery, extirpating the exotics, or putting an end to the monopoly of some native plants. If we inclose a park, and stock it with as many deer as the herbage will support, we cannot add sheep without lessening the number of the deer; nor can other herbivorous species be subsequently introduced, unless the individuals of each species in the park become fewer in proportion. So if there be an island where leopards are the only beasts of prey, and the lion, tiger, and hyaena afterwards enter, the leopards, if they stand their ground, will be reduced in number. If the locusts then arrive and swarm greatly, it may deprive a large number of phytophagous animals of their food, and thereby cause a famine, not only among them, but among the beasts of prey; -- certain species, perhaps, which had the weakest footing in the island will thus be annihilated. We have seen how many distinct geographical provinces there are of aquatic and terrestrial species, and how great are the powers of migration conferred on different classes, whereby the inhabitants of one region may be enabled from time to time to invade another, and do actually so migrate and diffuse themselves over new countries. Now, although our knowledge of the history of the animate creation dates from so recent a period, that we can scarcely trace the advance or decline of any animal or plant, except in those cases where the influence of man has intervened, yet we can easily conceive what must happen when some new colony of wild animals or plants enters a region for the first time, and succeeds in establishing itself. Let us consider how great are the devastations committed at certain periods by the Greenland bears, when they are drifted to the shores of Iceland in considerable numbers on the ice. These periodical invasions are formidable even to man; so that when the bears arrive, the inhabitants collect together, and go in pursuit of them with fire-arms -- each native who slays one being rewarded by the king of Denmark. The Danes of old, when they landed in their marauding expeditions upon our coast, hardly excited more alarm; nor did our islanders muster more promptly for the defence of their lives and property against a common enemy, than the modern Icelanders against these formidable brutes. It frequently happens, says Henderson, that the natives are pursued by the bear when he has been long at sea, and when his natural ferocity has been strengthened by the keenness of hunger; if unarmed, it is frequently by stratagem only that they make their escape. [1] Let us cast our thoughts back to the period when the first polar bears reached Iceland, before it was colonized by the Norwegians in 874; -- we may imagine the breaking up of an immense barrier of ice, like that which, in 1816 and the following year, disappeared from the east coast of Greenland, which it had surrounded for four centuries. By the aid of such means of transportation, a great number of these quadrupeds might effect a landing at the same time, and the havoc which they would make among the species previously settled in the island would be terrific. The deer, foxes, seals, and even birds, on which these animals sometimes prey, would be soon thinned down. But this would be a part only, and probably an insignificant portion, of the aggregate amount of change brought about by the new invader. The plants on which the deer fed being less consumed in consequence of the lessened numbers of that herbivorous species, would soon supply more food to several insects, and probably to some terrestrial testacea, so that the latter would gain ground. The increase of these would furnish other insects and birds with food, so that the numbers of these last would be augmented. The diminution of the seals would afford a respite to some fish which they had persecuted; and these fish, in their turn, would then multiply and press upon their peculiar prey. Many water-fowls, the eggs and young of which are devoured by foxes, would increase when the foxes were thinned down by the bears; and the fish on which the water-fowls subsisted would then, in their turn, be less numerous. Thus the numerical proportions of a great number of the inhabitants, both of the land and sea, might be permanently altered by the settling of one new species in the region; and the changes caused indirectly might ramify through all classes of the living creation, and be almost endless. An actual illustration of what we have here only proposed hypothetically, is in some degree afforded by the selection of small islands by the eider duck for its residence during the season of incubation; its nests being seldom, if ever, found on the shores of the main land, or even of a large island. The Icelanders are so well aware of this, that they have expended a great deal of labour in forming artificial islands, by separating from the main-land certain promontories, joined to it by narrow isthmuses. This insular position is necessary to guard against the destruction of the eggs and young birds, by foxes, dogs, and other animals. One year, says Hooker, [2] it happened that, in the small island of Vidoc, adjoining the coast of Iceland, a fox got over upon the ice, and caused great alarm, as an immense number of ducks were then sitting on their eggs or young ones. It was long before he was taken, which was at last, however, effected by bringing another fox. to the island, and fastening it by a string near the haunt of the former, by which he was allured within shot of the hunter. It is usually the first appearance of an animal or plant, in a region to which it was previously a stranger, that gives rise to the chief alteration; since, after a time, an equilibrium is again established. But it must require ages before such a new adjustment of the relative forces of so many conflicting agents can be definitively settled. The causes in simultaneous action are so numerous, that .they admit of an almost infinite number of combinations; and it is necessary that all these should have occurred once before the total amount of change, capable of flowing from any new disturbing force, can be estimated. Thus, for example, suppose that once in two centuries a frost of unusual intensity, or a volcanic eruption of immense violence, accompanied by floods from the melting of glaciers, should occur in Iceland, or an epidemic disease, fatal to the larger number of individuals of some one species, and not affecting others, -- these, and a variety of other contingencies, all of which may occur at once, or at periods separated by different intervals of time, ought to happen before it would be possible for us to declare what ultimate alteration the presence of any new comer, such as the bear before mentioned, might occasion in the animal population of the isle. Every new condition in the state of the organic or inorganic creation, a new animal or plant, an additional snow-clad mountain, any permanent change, however slight in comparison to the whole, gives rise to a new order of things, and may make a material change in regard to some one or more species. Yet a swarm of locusts, or a frost of extreme intensity, may pass away without any great apparent derangement; no species may be lost, and all may soon recover their former relative numbers, because the same scourges may have visited the region, again and again, at some former periods. Every plant that was incapable of resisting such a degree of cold, every animal which was exposed to be entirely cut off by famine, in consequence of the consumption of vegetation by the locusts, may have perished already, so that the subsequent recurrence of similar catastrophes is attended only by a temporary change. We are best acquainted with the mutations brought about by the progress of human population, and the growth of plants and animals favoured by man. To these, therefore, we should, in the first instance, turn our attention. If we conclude, from the concurrent testimony of history and of the evidence yielded by geological data, that man is, comparatively speaking, of very modern origin, we must at once perceive how great a revolution in the state of the animate world the increase of the human race, considered merely as consumers of a certain quantity of organic matter, must necessarily cause. It may, perhaps, be said, that man has, in some degree, compensated for the appropriation to himself of so much food, by artificially improving the natural productiveness of soils, by irrigation, manure, and a judicious intermixture of mineral ingredients conveyed from different localities. But it admits of reasonable doubt, whether, upon the whole, we fertilize or impoverish the lands which we occupy. This assertion may seem startling to many, because they are so much in the habit of regarding the sterility or productiveness of land in relation to the wants of man, and not as regards the organic world generally. It is difficult, at first, to conceive, if a morass is converted into arable land, and made to yield a crop of grain, even of moderate abundance, that we have not improved the capabilities of the habitable surface -- that we have not empowered it to support a larger quantity of organic life. In such cases, a tract, before of no utility to man, may be reclaimed and become of high agricultural importance, but it may yield, at the same time, a scantier vegetation. If a lake be drained and turned into a meadow, the space will provide sustenance to man and many terrestrial animals serviceable to him, but not perhaps so much food as it previously yielded to the aquatic races. If the pestiferous Pontine Marshes were drained and covered with corn, like the plains of the Po, they might, perhaps, feed a smaller number of animals than they do now; for these morasses are filled with of herds of buffaloes and swine, and they swarm with birds, reptiles, and insects. The felling of dense and lofty forests which covered, even within the records of history, a considerable space on the globe, now tenanted by civilized man, must usually have lessened the amount of vegetable food throughout the space where these woods grew. We must also take into our account the area covered by towns, and a still larger surface occupied by roads. If we force the soil to bear extraordinary crops one year, we are, perhaps, compelled to let it lie fallow the next. But nothing so much counterbalances the fertilizing effects of human art as the extensive cultivation of foreign herbs and shrubs, which, although they are often more nutritious to man, seldom thrive with the same rank luxuriance as the native plants of a district. Man is, in truth, continually striving to diminish the natural diversity of the stations of animals and plants in every country, and to reduce them all to a small number fitted for species of economical use. He may succeed perfectly in attaining his object, even though the vegetation be comparatively meagre, and the total amount of animal life be greatly lessened. Spix and Martius have given a lively description of the incredible number of insects which lay waste the crops in Brazil, besides swarms of monkeys, flocks of parrots and other birds, as well as the paca, agouti, and wild swine. They describe the torment which the planter and the naturalist suffer from the musquitoes, and the devastation of the ants and blattae; they speak of the dangers to which they were exposed from the jaguar, the poisonous serpents, lizards, scorpions, centipedes, and spiders. But with the increasing population and cultivation of the country, observe these naturalists, these evils will gradually diminish; when the inhabitants have cut down the woods, drained the marshes, made roads in all directions, and founded villages and towns, man will by degrees triumph over the rank vegetation and the noxious animals, and all the elements will second and amply recompense his activity. [3] The number of human beings now peopling the earth is supposed to amount to eight hundred millions, so that we may easily understand how great a number of beasts of prey, birds, and animals of every class, this prodigious population must have displaced, independently of the still more important consequences which have followed from the derangement brought about by man in the relative numerical strength of particular species. Let us make some inquiries into the extent of the influence which the progress of society has exerted, during the last seven or eight centuries, in altering the distribution of our indigenous British animals. Dr. Fleming has prosecuted this inquiry with his usual zeal and ability, and in a memoir [4] on the subject has enumerated the best-authenticated examples of the decrease or extirpation of certain species during a period when our population has made the most rapid advances. We shall offer a brief outline of his results. The stag, as well as the fallow deer and the roe, were formerly so abundant that, according to Lesley, from five hundred to a thousand were sometimes slain at a hunting-match; but the native races would already have been extinguished, had they not been carefully preserved in certain forests. The otter, the marten, and the polecat, were also in sufficient numbers to be pursued for the sake of their fur; but they have now been reduced within very narrow bounds. The wild cat and fox have also been sacrificed throughout the greater part of the country, for the security of the poultry-yard or the fold. Badgers have been expelled from nearly every district which at former periods they inhabited. Besides these, which have been driven out from some haunts, and everywhere reduced in number, there are some which have been wholly extirpated; such as the ancient breed of indigenous horses, the wild boar, and the wild oxen, of' which last, however, a few remains are still preserved in the parks of some of our nobility. The beaver, which was eagerly sought after for its fur, had become scarce at the close of the ninth century, and, by the twelfth century, was only to be met with, according to Giraldus de Barri, in one river in Wales, and another in Scotland. The wolf, once so much dreaded by our ancestors, is said to have maintained its ground in Ireland so late as the beginning of the eighteenth century (1710), though it had been extirpated in Scotland thirty years before, and in England at a much earlier period. The bear, which in Wales was regarded as a beast of the chace equal to the hare or the boar, [5] only perished as a native of Scotland in the year 1057. [6] Many native birds of prey have also been the subjects of unremitting persecution. The eagles, larger hawks, and ravens, have disappeared from the more cultivated districts. The haunts of the mallard, the snipe, the redshank, and the bittern, have been drained equally with the summer dwellings of the lapwing and the curlew. But these species still linger in some portion of the British isles; whereas the large capercailzies, or wood grouse, formerly natives of the pine-forests of Ireland and Scotland, have been destroyed within the last fifty years. The egret and the crane, which appear to have been formerly very common in Scotland, are now only occasional visitants. [7] The bustard (Otis tarda), observes Graves in his British Ornithology, [8] "was formerly seen in the downs and heaths oC various parts of our island, in Hocks of forty or fifty birds; whereas it is now a circumstance of rare occurrence to meet with a single individual." Bewick also remarks, "that they were formerly more common in this island than at present; they are now found only in the open counties of the south and east, in the plains of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and some parts of Yorkshire." In the few years that have elapsed since Bewick wrote, this bird has entirely disappeared from Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. [9] These changes, we may observe, are derived from very imperfect memorials, and relate only to the larger and more conspicuous animals inhabiting a small spot on the globe; but they cannot fail to exalt our conception of the enormous revolutions which, in the course of several thousand years, the whole human species must have effected. The kangaroo and the emu are retreating rapidly before the progress of colonization in Australia; and it scarcely admits of doubt, that the general cultivation of that country must lead to the extirpation of both. The most striking example of the loss, even within the last two centuries, of a remarkable species, is that of the dodo-a bird first seen by the Dutch when they landed on the Isle of France, at that time uninhabited, immediately after the discovery of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. It was of a large size and singular form; its wings short, like those of an ostrich, and wholly incapable of sustaining its heavy body even for a short flight. In its general appearance it differed from the ostrich, cassowary, or any known bird. Many naturalists gave figures of the dodo after the commencement of the seventeenth century, and there is a painting of it in the British Museum, which is said to have been taken from a living individual. Beneath the painting is a leg, in a fine state of preservation, which ornithologists are agreed cannot belong to any other known bird. In the museum at Oxford, also, there is a foot and a head, in an imperfect state, but M. Cuvier doubts the identity of this species with that of which the painting is preserved in London. [10] In spite of the most active search, during the last century, no information respecting the dodo was obtained, and some authors have gone so far as to pretend that it never existed; but amongst a great mass of satisfactory evidence in favour of the recent existence of this species, we may mention that an assemblage of fossil bones were recently discovered, under a bed of lava, in the Isle of France, and sent to the Paris museum by M. Desjardins. They almost all belonged to a large living species of land-tortoise, called Testudo Indica, but amongst them were the head, sternum, and humerus of the dodo. M. Cuvier showed me these valuable remains in Paris, and assured me that they left no doubt in his mind that the huge bird was one of the gallinaceous tribe. [11] Next to the direct agency of man, his indirect influence in multiplying the numbers of large herbivorous quadrupeds of domesticated races, may be regarded as one of the most obvious causes of the extermination of species. On this, and on several other grounds, the introduction of the horse, ox, and other mammalia, into America, and their rapid propagation over that continent within the last three centuries, is a fact of great importance in natural history. The extraordinary herds of wild cattle and horses which overran the plains of South America, sprung from a very few pairs first carried over by the Spaniards; and they prove that the wide geographical range of large species in great continents does not necessarily imply that they have existed there from remote periods. Humboldt observes, in his Travels, [12] on the authority of Azzara, that it is believed there exist, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, twelve million cows and three million horses, without comprising in this enumeration the cattle that have no acknowledged proprietor. In the Llanos of Caraccas, the rich hateros, or proprietors of pastoral farms, are entirely ignorant of the number of cattle they possess. The young are branded with a mark peculiar to each herd, and some of the most wealthy owners mark as many as fourteen thousand a year. In the northern plains, from the Orinoco to the lake of Maracaybo, M. Depons reckoned that one million two hundred thousand oxen, one hundred and eighty thousand horses, and ninety thousand mules, wandered at large. [13] In some parts of the valley of the Mississippi, especially in the country of the Osage Indians, wild horses are immensely numerous. The establishment of black cattle in America dates from Columbus's second voyage to St. Domingo. They there multiplied rapidly; and that island presently became a kind of nursery from which these animals were successively transported to various parts of the continental coast, and from thence into the interior. Notwithstanding these numerous exportations, in twenty-seven years after the discovery of the island, herds of four thousand head, as we learn from Oviedo, were not uncommon, and there were even some that amounted to eight thousand. In 1587, the number of hides exported from St. Domingo alone, according to Acosta's report, was thirty-five thousand four hundred and forty-four; and in the same year there were exported sixty-four thousand three hundred and fifty from the ports of New Spain. This was in the sixty-fifth year after the taking of Mexico, previous to which event the Spaniards, who came into that country, had not been able to engage in anything else than war. [14] All our readers are aware that these animals are now established throughout the American continent, from Canada to Paraguay. The ass has thriven very generally in the New World; and we learn from Ulloa, that in Quito they ran wild, and multi plied in amazing numbers, so as to become a nuisance. They grazed together in herds, and, when attacked, defended themselves with their mouths. If a horse happened to stray into the places where they fed, they all fell upon him, and did not cease biting and kicking till they left him dead. [15] The first hogs were carried to America by Columbus, and established in the island of St. Domingo the year following its discovery in November, 1493. In succeeding years they were introduced into other places where the Spaniards settled; and, in the space of half a century, they were found established in the New World, from the latitude of 25° north, to the 40th degree of south latitude. Sheep, also, and goats have multiplied enormously in the New World, as have also the cat and the rat, which last, as we before stated, has been imported unintentionally in ships. The dogs introduced by man, which have at different periods become wild in America, hunted in packs like the wolf and the jackal, destroying not only hogs, but the calves and foals of the wild cattle and horses. Ulloa in his voyage, and Buffon on the authority of old writers, relate a fact which illustrates very clearly the principle before explained by us, of the check which the increase of one animal necessarily offers to that of another. The Spaniards had introduced goats into the island of Juan Fernandez, where they became so prolific as to furnish the pirates who infested those seas with provisions. In order to cut off this resource from the buccaneers, a number of dogs were turned loose into the island; and so numerous did they become in their turn, that they destroyed the goats in every accessible part, after which the number of the wild dogs again decreased. [16] As an example of the rapidity with which a large tract may become peopled by the offspring of a single pair of quadrupeds, we may mention, that in the year 1773 thirteen rein-deer were exported from Norway, only three of which reached Iceland. These were turned loose into the mountains of Guldbringe Syssel, where they multiplied so greatly, in the course of forty years, that it was not uncommon to meet with herds consisting of from forty to one hundred in various districts. In Lapland, observes a modern writer, the rein-deer is a loser by his connexion with man, but Iceland will be this creature's paradise. There is, in the interior, a tract which Sir G. Mackenzie computes at not less than forty thousand square miles, without a single human habitation, and almost entirely unknown to the natives themselves. There are no wolves; the Icelanders will keep out the bears; and the rein-deer, being almost unmolested by man, will have no enemy whatever, unless it has brought with it its own tormenting gad-fly. [17] Besides the quadrupeds before enumerated by us, our domestic fowls have also succeeded in the West Indies and America, where they have the common fowl, the goose, the duck, the peacock, the pigeon, and the guinea-fowl. As these were often taken suddenly from the temperate to very hot regions, they were not reared at first without much difficulty; but after a few generations they became familiarized to the climate, which, in many cases, approached much nearer than that of Europe to the temperature of their original native countries. The fact of so many millions of wild and tame individuals of our domestic species, almost all of them the largest quadrupeds and birds, having been propagated throughout the new continent within the short period that has elapsed since the discovery of America, while no appreciable improvement can have been made in the productive powers 'of that vast continent, affords abundant evidence of the extraordinary changes which accompany the diffusion and progressive advancement of the human race over the globe. That it should have remained for us to witness such mighty revolutions is a proof, even if there was no other evidence, that the entrance of man into the planet is, comparatively speaking, of extremely modern date, and that the effects of his agency are only beginning to be felt. A modern writer has estimated, that there are in America upwards of four million square miles of useful soil, each capable of supporting two hundred persons; and nearly six million, each mile capable of supporting four hundred and ninety persons. [18] If this conjecture be true, it will follow, as that author observes, that if the natural resources of America were fully developed, it would afford sustenance to five times as great a number of inhabitants as the entire mass of human beings existing at present upon the globe. The new continent, he thinks, though less than half the size of the old, contains an equal quantity of useful soil, and much more than an equal amount of productive power. Be this as it may, we may safely conclude that the amount of human population now existing, constitutes but a small proportion of that which the globe is capable of supporting, or which it is destined to sustain at no distant period, by the rapid progress of society, especially in America, Australia, and certain parts of the old continent. But if we reflect that already many millions of square miles of the most fertile land, occupied originally by a boundless variety of animal and vegetable forms, have been already brought under the dominion of man, and compelled, in a great measure, to yield nourishment to him, and to a limited number of plants and animals which he has caused to increase, we must at once be convinced, that the annihilation of a multitude of species has already been effected, and will continue to go on hereafter, in certain regions, in a still more rapid ratio, as the colonies of highly-civilized nations spread themselves over unoccupied lands. Yet, if we wield the sword of extermination as we advance, we have no reason to repine at the havoc committed, nor to fancy, with the Scotch poet, that" we violate the social union of nature;" or complain, with the melancholy Jaques, that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and, what's worse, We have only to reflect, that in thus obtaining possession of the earth by conquest, and defending our acquisitions by force, we exercise no exclusive prerogative. Every species which has spread itself from a small point over a wide area, must, in like manner, have marked its progress by the diminution, or the entire extirpation, of some other, and must maintain its ground by a successful struggle against the encroachments of other plants and animals. That minute parasitic plant, called " the rust" in wheat, has, like the Hessian fly, the locust, and the aphis, caused famines ere now amongst the "lords of the creation." The most insignificant and diminutive species, whether in the animal or vegetable kingdom, have each slaughtered their thousands, as they disseminated themselves over the globe, as well as the lion, when first it spread itself over the tropical regions of Africa. We cannot conclude this division of our subject without observing, that although we have as yet considered one class only of the causes (the organic) whereby species may become exterminated, yet the continued action of these alone, throughout myriads of future ages, must work an entire change in the state of the organic creation, not merely on the continents and islands, where the power of man is chiefly exerted, but in the great ocean, where his control is almost unknown. The mind is prepared by the contemplation of such future revolutions to look for the signs of others, of an analogous nature, in the monuments of the past. Instead of being astonished at the proofs there manifested of endless mutations in the animate world, they will appear to one who has thought profoundly on the fluctuations now in progress, to afford evidence in favour of the uniformity of the system, unless, indeed, we are precluded from speaking of uniformity when we characterize a principle of endless variation. _______________ Notes: 1. Journal of a Residence in Iceland, p. 276. 2. Tour in Iceland, vol. i., p. 64, second edition. 3. Travels in Brazil, vol. i., p. 260. 4. Ed. Phil. Journ., No. xxii., p. 287. Oct. 1824. 5. Ray, Syn. Quad., p. 214. 6. Ibid., p. 295. 7. Fleming, Syn. Quad., p. 295. 8. Vol. iii. London, 1821. 9. Land Birds, vol. i., p. 316, Ed. 1821. 10. Some have complained that inscriptions on tomb-stones convey no general information except that individuals were born and died, accidents which must happen alike to all men. But the death of a species is so remarkable an event in natural history, that it deserves commemoration, and it is with no small interest that we learn, from the archives of the University of Oxford, the exact day and year when the remains of the last specimen of the dodo, which had rotted in the Ashmolean museum, were cast away. The relics, we are told, were "a Musaeo subducta, annuente Vice-cancellario aliisque curatoribus, ad ea lustranda convocatis, die Januarii, 8vo., A.D., 1755." Zoot Journ., No. 12, p. 559. 1828. 11. Sur quelques Ossemens, &c. Ann. des Sci., tome xxi., p. 103. Sept. 1830. 12. Pers. Nar., vol. iv. 13. Quarterly Review, vol. xxi., p. 335. 14. Quarterly Review, vol. xxi., p. 335. 15. Ulloa's Voyage. Wood's Zoog., vol. i., p. 9. 16. Buffon, vol. v., p. 100. Ulloa's Voyage, vol., ii., p. 220. 17. Travels in Iceland in 1810, p. 342. 18. Maclaren, Art. America. Encyc. Britannica. |