The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-09-13
PAST ANIMAL LIFE.
WIDE FIELDS or SPECULATION AND
INVESTIGATION.

Is IL necessary TO go into paroxysms OF
grief because certain animals are extinct
or, as Mr.. Frederic A. Lucas, of the United
States National museum, expresses II, are
Threatened with exterminationS" There
arc more men and fewer wild animals
Mankind does not interfere SO much with
the survival Of the fittest rs IL hastens the
destruction Of the entire fauna Formerly,
as Mr.. Lucas properly explains it, Through
natural causes race after race of ami
mails has disappeared from the globe.
The determination of species by nature is
ordinarily slow, and the place of one is
taken by another, while the destruction
wrought by man is rapid, and the gaps he
creates remain untitled"
There was the great aux, an uncommonly
fat and awkward bird, that positively said
to hungry sailors, "Come, catch me, roast
and eat me-" Think Of the godsend an
Alca impensis must have been. not alone
to primitive man, but to the early settlers
of Maine or Labrador. When Carriers
hardy mariners landed off Funk island in
1884 they made glorious Hastings on the
great aux. Here were poor fellows, dying
of scuryy, getting back vital forces with
every mouthful of great aux they swal
lowed. Are they to be begrudged because
they "filled two boats full of birds as If
they had been stones, SO that, besides
them which we did eat fresh, every ship
did powder and salt five or six barrels Of
them"
1 Those Basque and other fishermen who
crossed the stormy seas for cod depended
on the luscious aux for their rations. The
number Of the birds must have been count
less, because the aux was not prolific
breeder, laying only one egg at time
Poor, stupid old bird, shaped by nature to
become fat and heavy, to find its food so
readily that 1t wanted no wings, and so
was killed!
i, 1t might have lasted longer as a bird If
iit had not. been for its feathers. Just as
soon as it was "a question of securing the
Care fowls feathers, then it was indeed
bound to disappear. Men went to their
best breeding ground, which was Funk is
land, and slew auks by the millions. All
that was done was to strip the birds
of their skins. and their bodies were left
to decay. Still the bird hung on ms a
rara avis up to 1910, and then it was no
longer an inhabitant of the world any
more than the dodo. Could any of Car
tiers sailors have thought that skeleton
of great aux, when offered for sale,
would create the widest excitement and
be worth 5000, or skin fetch $3.50, or
fair cgGshell 81 ,50O2
/ When Columbus sought Copango and
came across the West Indies his sailors
found along the shores the seal known to-
day MS the MonHchus tropicalis distin-
guished characteristic of this seal was that
it placed little or no dependence on its hind
lippers Nature had overlooked or sighted
their development 1t was seal without
proper coordination Of movement. When
IL wanted to go forward oil the land it had
to arch its back something like caterpil-
J lar, and then after prodigiOus effort its
progress was less than n foot OF course
with the advent Of man this West Indian
was doomed.
The strange thing about this seal, so far
as the collector is concerned, is this
although Monachus tropicalis was known
to have existed for several centuries, not n
single perfect specimen has fallen into the
hands Of the naturalists, Dampier in 1915
told OF the abundance of these seals and
wrote. The Spaniards do often come
hither tYucatanl to make oyl Of their
fat" Sir Hans Sloan, who ten years after
Dampier visited the Bahamas, wrote that
these islands were filed with seals: Some
times fishers will catch 100 in II night.
They try to melt them and bring oil their
oil for lamps ON the island" Perhaps the
last OF these seals is existing today, for
some were taken as late as 1886, but In ten
years from now there viii he no more Of
Monachus tropicalis. 1t has served its
purpose.
T. In the Swamp, in New York city, that
, quarter devoted to leather, one may oc.
casonally see two men lifting into truck
! what looks like u heavy wooden plank
only of greater width than is cut from
trees. The material is stiff and hard, and
L if you strike IL you can appreciate how
hard ii is. 1t is walrus hide, used fol
( builing wheels, and it is about three niche.
i thick. The walrus of the northern Pacif,
I Is being exterininated for its tusks. hid,
/. and oil. While Whaling was profitable tn,
walrus was passed over, but to-day it 1,
= too valuable On the Atlantic side thu
chances Of the wairus still existing ar,
better, because it is much harder to get
/, but when the Pacific walrus becomes rar,
: the Atlantic one will certainly be sough
' for.
Little or nothing is known today abou
8 the rytina, or arctic sea cow-the Rytini
gigas. 1t was related to the manatee o
u, dugong. only it lived far north. 1t was
- big creature, certainly twenty-five or thir
ty feet long, with a grth Of from fifteen T.
Is twenty feet, and probably IN adult woul,
weigh four tons. IL had a ridiculousl
= small head ind ---- toothless Its ski
was supposedly tough, not thick, but har,
r. enough to resist the edge of an AK. 1t wa
y. gregarious and lived at the mouths of riy
ers, pasturing Oh seiweed. When BehrinJ
QT4D was in kamchatka he saved hi
crew from scurvy by taking sea cows. |
a was II creature so easy to kill that exter
mination soon took place.
IS On Copper island, where this sea COY
a was once plentiful, they had become rar
=, in 1858. The last one WAS probably kille,
IL Dn BehTing island in the last quarter O
N The Eighteenth century. Some years age
at the instigation Of the United States Ma
81 tional museum, DR. Stejneger visited Behl
f. ing island in search Of sea COW skeleton
=, and WAS fortunate enough to find skuils
i. ribs and other bones, and so today Nc
70 81 ,9G6 OF the catalogue of the Natiuna
museum stands for the skeleton of the Sc
r cow
SO much notoriety has been given to tn
dodo that it is scarcely necessary to Civ
n more than passing notice to Didus incl
-, tus. We generally accept Pisa's pctur
- Of the dodo, but the conhguration given
a by Savary In the Seventeenth centur
, comes nearer to what ornithologists b,
= lieve to have been the true shape Til
s. probability is that after all the dodo wa
mot good bird to eat. In 1853, though
had been fairly abundant In Madagascar
ia Mauritius, Bourbon and Rodriguez, it WA
~. extinct. The dodo owes its reputation I
u the wonderful work done by Owen, VIII
DC reconstructed bird with few bones
=. New York Times.