LIABILITY OF INSULAR FAUNAS TO DESTIMCTION. The examples ,inst. recounted illustrate cases in which inhabitants of small islands have succumbed to changes in their limited circum stances. Thus the New Zealand group has lost several birds which were either confined to iso lated :Hai limited places or were helpless to escape from European colonists. A certain quail (Coturnix) and the owl parrot (Nestor) are gone; :111(1 of two species of kaki parrots (Nestor productus and Norfolkensis) none remains upon either Philip or Norfolk islands, where they abounded respectively prey ions to IS50. other Australasian species which spend their lives upon the ground are weak of flight, and, mi. accustomed to such enemies, are rapidly disap pearing under persecution by rats, and by im ported ferrets, weasels, etc., introduced by the English settlers in an unwise attempt to subduo the plague of rabbits, whieh they had previously 'acclimatized.' One of the forms most threat ened are the curious flightless •eka (q.v.) rails, of which closely allied species once existed on Norfolk Island, on Lord Howe Island, and on one of the Chatham Islands. Dixon quotes Dr. Forbes in the statement that seventeen species of birds that formerly lived on Chatham Island have become extinct. The civilization of the Sandwich Islands has led to the destruction of several birds, one of which, the nano (q.v.), was sought for the sake of its rich yellow feathers, used as all ornament of the cloaks of the chiefs, until none remained ; another, re lated to the wattle-crows, succumbed to the clear ing of certain brushy woods by cattle and goats. Tahiti seem to have lost utterly a certain rail (Prosabonia leneoptera) and Latham's white •inged sandpiper (Hypot(rnidin Paeifira); and another shore-bird (.-Eehmorynchus) has died out in the Christmas Island group.
The most conspicuous examples of island birds extinguished since white men discovered their isolated homes are afforded. however, by Mauri tius and the neighboring islands of the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, when rediscovered by the Dutch at the end of the sixteenth century. was in habited by that singular and inept bird the dodo (q.v.), relations of which (see SOLITAIRE) have perished likewise in the islands of Reunion and Rodriguez. In Mauritius, besides the dodo, at least two species of parrot, a dove, a large coot, and a second minim bird, abnormally flight less and long-billed, called Aphanapteryx, have become extinct. Reunion, also, once had other birds now lost, and so had Rodriguez. In Re union, a somewhat abnormal starling, Fregilupns, -existed until about 1850, while from Rodriguez the greater part of its original avifauna has vanished. There were a small but peculiar owl (.-I there murivo•a), a big parrot (YerropsittaNts Rodericanus), a (love (Eryth•a'na, sp. ism.), a large hrevipennate heron (Ard-ea megacephala), and a singular rail, besides other birds of which we know from the old voyagers.
The destruction of bird life in these islands was due not only to direct chase by mall, but indirectly to the introduction of domestic or other animals. The hogs let loose in the Mas carene Islands finished the dodos and their rela tives, an rats have done great mischief in Oceanica. Fires, too, have burned the coverts. destroyed nests and eggs, and killed much or all of the food of many species by consuming reptiles, insects, mollusks, worms, etc., great numbers of species of which are also to be counted among the animals recently extinct. This agency was espe cially potent in the Antilles.
The turtle tribe presents a parallel case of ex tinction in the island-inhabiting species of gigan tic tortoise (q.v.)—isolated survivors of forms widespread during the later Tertiary age. Dur
ing the historic period various species of these gigantic tortoises have been numerous on the Mascarene Islands, on Ahlaba•a, a small island northwest of Madagascar, and on the Galapagos Islands, west of South America. At the end of the seventeenth century they existed by thou sands in Mauritius (three Rodriguez (one species), and Reunion (one species). In \lauritius they were still abundant until about 1750, when they became so scarce that impor tations from Rodriguez were made by the ship load, as food for the garrison; and the continu ance of thee supplies (also sent to the Sey chelles), together with the constant destruction of the eggs, exhausted the stock of tortoises about the end of the eighteenth century. Those of Reunion had vanished long before; and a single aged captive at Saint Louis, Mauritius, still alive in 1895, at an age probably approach ing 200 years, is the sole survivor of the great herds of Rodriguez. Aldabara had originally four species, one of which, the elephant tortoise, only survives, and is very scarce. The Galapagos possessed several species, all good for food, and now destroyed with the exception of a few on Albemarle Island, and about 100 specimens living in various zoological gardens. See Ton Africa has been the scene of extraordinarily rapid changes in faunal characteristics during the last century, and its later decades have wit nessed the extermination as wild game, if not absolutely, of many of the largest and finest quadrupeds in its list. The herds of elephants, buffaloes, antelopes, and other grazers which thronged upon the plains and in the forests of South and Central Africa when Europeans began to colonize there, were past counting.
This wealth of game was ruthlessly destroyed by Arab and Portuguese traders and Dutch farmers, and then by English and German sports men, settlers, and bide-hunters—the last the worst agents of destruction, as has been the case in America. The result has been the depletion of game throughout all the- more open regions. until now many species, exceedingly numerous previous to 1850, have become rare, and obtain able only in remote districts. while several spe cies of the finest of African quadrupeds have totally vanished. (Inc of these is the square mouthed rhinoceros (Rhinoceros simus), none of which has been seen for several years. Another lost species, and one greatly to be regretted, is the true quagga (Equus quagga). a magnificent wild horse which originally roamed over South Africa, but was killed off by the Boers. first as food for their black servants. and later for the hides. until it utterly disappeared by 1875 or 1SS0. An even earlier date had witnessed the extermination of the true or mountain zebra (q.v.), which lingered somewhat longer in the Abyssinian interior, but seems now' entirely gone. Several of the larger antelopes have met or seem about to share the fate of these lost horses. The eland has been nearly extirpated by Dutch hide hunters. The hlauhok (Hippotragus leuro ph(rus) has long been extinct, and its relatives the magnificent sable and roan antelopes (qq.v.) are growing rare; the white-tailed gnu (q.v.) is on the verge of extinction, except for a few pre served as captives; the bontebok and blessbok (inv.) are rapidly approaching the same fate; and the giraffe. on account of its incessant perse cution by men in search of its valuable hide, re mains numerous only in the remote waterless re "ions of the northern Kalahari Desert. A mon key (Colobus Kirk-i) of limited distribution on the West Coast and the island of Zanzibar is now supposed to be extinct. See HARTBEEST.