Morning journal and courier., 1881-04-19
Large Game Disappearing.
Tlae Biggest Animals Surely and by N
 MeARs S1oFYfH ReeorntnG Extinct.

The Biggest Animals Surely and by No Mesas Slowly Becoming Extinct.
 In an interesting article in Frsfeh journal | M. Vlgnes shows that those species which ex-
 ceed their fellows in height or bulk are more | than ever at the present day threatened with extinction. Since the recent geological epochs the progressive diminution of their number
 has become all the more rapid that they must
 now count man among the numerous compe-
 titors that dispute with them the surface of
 the earth. Thus the present age may be
 called upon to witness the accomplishment of
 their extinction. As the result of this new
 competition, quite different from any which
 they have had previously to sustain, many of
 these species have already become quite ex-
 tinct, and those that are still represented in
 the living world are every day being reduced in
 the number is individuals belonging to them.
 The animals that belong to these species, be- ing those the pursuit of which is most profita-
 ble, or the destruction of which is necessary for the security of man, are inevitably those most exposed to disappearauoe from every re- zion that the privileged being may incorpor- ate in his domain In the struggle which they have 10 maintain against this new com petitor they present, in comparison with species of morderate or small size, two dis advantages. The mass of their body being more developed they require more abundant nourishment, and are thus liable to be depriv ed of sufficient subsistence. Besides, their multiplication being comparatively slow, they can only repair theft losses with great difficul. ty Certain small species-rats, mice, insects, &c., against which there is universal war, with no hope of exterminating them, owe their safety to their extraordinary fecundity; whereas the losses among the larger animals can be but partially filled up by reproduction. If science does not make haste to complete her knowledge of these great animals. She will by and by find herself deprivedof subject, It Is certainly not rash to maintain that the whales lamantins, dugongs, walrus, cer- tain of seals and otaries, the great white bear of the Arctic coast, the common bear, wolves, the great carnivora Qions, tigers, &c.), gorillas, the giant armadillo, giraffes elands, aurochs, the bison, elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoeeros, kangaroo, elephantine turtle, cro- codile, birds of the ostrich group, the Arctic penguin, &c., are all threatened with the same fate which during recent centuries has overtaken, among others, the gigantic ep1orn1s of Madagascar, the great meos of New Zealand, and within the last two centuries the enor- nous dove and gigantic waterfowl of Maurl- tius. Among the creatures which have only recently become extinct birds are especially conspicuous. In recent times these have been very subject to adverse influence and very great number of types, remarkable for the1r great height or their massive form, have passed, under our eyes as it were. from Hv- ing nature into the gloomy domain of the fossil
  competition will soon follow the moas, the dinornis, the epiornis, &e. Already the great carnivora are rapidly disappearing before ths rifles of our mighty hunters; the whales and other great marine animals are becoming scarcer every year; the eland, the greatest of the deer family, is not nearly so plentiful as formerly; the greatest of the wild oxen, the aurochs, which lived in Cesar's time in all the forests of temperate Europe, is now con- fined to those of Lithuania and Moldavia; the bison is no longer found in the immense herds on the prairies of North America that were seen in the days of the early colonists; the giant armadillo is likely to follow to the ossuaries of Paraguay its congener, the giypto- don, and the other great extinct edentata of the quaternary epoch; the great kangaroo no longer swarms in Australia as in the days when the natives were the sole lords of the soil; the number of gigantic turtles croco- diles, ostriches, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, elephants giraffes, &c., is becoming smaller and smaller. All the great game is thus de- cimated in consequence of the unregulated and improvident pursuit to which it is sub jected. All the great animals, in general, tend after their kind to disappear, in consequences of human competition The only ones which man will allow to survive will be those from which he can, without much trouble, draw some profit either by regulated pursuit or by domeStication.