The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-07-09
Gradual Disappearance of the Larger
Animals.


The species among the different
classes of animals which exceed their
congeners in size are now more than
ever threatened with determination.
The progressive diminUion in their
numbers has been more rapid during the
recent geological period because they
have had man as their competitor; and
the present age may be destined to wit
ness their entire disappearance. In con-
sequence of the new competition OPP
posed by man, more formidable thar
any other that the large animals have
had to meet, many species have already
become extinct, and many of those
which are still represented among living
beings are daily diminishing in numbers.
The animals comprising these species,
being those which are hunted with
profit, or those the destruction of which
is important for human security, are for
these reasons inevitably the most
exposed to be driven from every
region in which the privileged being has
established his abode. In the struggle
which they have to sustain against the
new rivalry they labor under the two
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smaller animals, that they require a
more abundant supply of food and that
their reproduction is less frequent and
more limited, so that the losses they en-
dure are hardly repaired. The smaller
species keep up their numbers, and even
increase, in consequence of their e2:-
IRENE fertility, in spite of the most per-
sistent efforts of man to exterminate
them. The larger animals would he
totally destroyed in very short time
if they had to suffer the same proportion
of losses. 1t is hardly rash to assert
that the whales, the cachalots, the
Sirenidg, the morses, certain spe-
cies of seals and diaries, the
great white bear of the Arctic
coasts, and the other bears, the large
carnivorous cats Qions, tigers, etc. }, the
gorillas, the great armadillo, the great
ant-eater, the giraffes, the elan, the au.
rochs, the bison, the elephants, the hip.
popotamuses, the rhinoceroses, the
great kangaroo, the elephantine turtles,
the crocodiles, the birds of the ostrich
group, the great penguin of the frozen
sea, etc., are threatened with the fate
that has within few centuries befallen
the enormous epiornis of Madagascar,
the gigantic moas of New Zealand, and
within less than two centuries the dodo
and the giant bird of the Island of Maui
ritius, the two latter species represent
ing the largest columbia and the talle@t
waterfowl that have ever existed. The
great carnivora are already fast disaI-
pearing before the bullets of emulous
lion and tiger hunters; the whales an l
other larger mammalia are becomin.
scarce. The largest of the deer, TIT
elan, is less widely distributed than fol.
merly; the largest of wild cattle, the
aurochs, which formerly ranged over AL
Europe, is now found only in the forests
of Lithuania and Moldavia; the bisonno
longer covers the prairies with bound-
less herds; the great armadillo is disap-
pearing from South America, and tie
great kangaroo from Australia; and
numbers of the other animals we have
named are gradually diminishing. Itss
time for science to be busy in complet.
ing the study of these animals before
some of their species go to join the ranks
OF those which are represented only in
fossils. Nature.