The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-10-07
PAST ANIMAL LIFE.
WIDE. FIELDS OF sPEcuLA7loN AND
INVESTIGATION.


They Are No More
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 it, are
threatened with extermination?" There
arc moro men and fewer wild animals.
Mankind DOES not interfere so much with
the survival of the fittest rs 1t 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, IN Incommonly
fat and awkward bird, that positively snid
to hungry sailors, "Come, catch me. roust
and eat me-" Think of the godsend an
Alca fmpensis must have been, not alone
to primitive man, but to the carly settlers
or Maine or Labrador When Carriers
hardy mariners landed Off Funk island in
1854 they made glorious Hastings ON the
great aux. Here were poor fellows. dvjnp
every mouthful of great aux they swat
lowed. Are they to he begrudged because
they "hllcd two boats full of birds as if
tney hau been stones, SO that, besides
them which we did eat fresh, every ship
dld powder and salt five or six barrels OF
them"
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 n prolific
breeder, laying only one egg Mt n time
Poor, stupid old bird, shaped by nature to
become fat and heavy, to find it's food so
readily thnt it wanted no wings, and SO
was killed.
1t might have lasted longer as IL bird if
1t had not been for it's feathers Just MS
soon as it was II question of securing the
Care fowls feathers then it was indeed
bound to disappear. Men went to their
pest 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 as
rara avis up to 1910, and then it was no
longer an inhabitant of the world any
more than the ,tolo. Could any of Car
tiers sailors lave Thought that n skeleton
OF great nuk, when offered for sale.
would create the widest excitemcnt and
be worth 5000, or n skin fetch $3.50. or II
fair egSshell 81, 5G0g
When Columbus sought Copango and
came across the West Indies his sailors
found along the shores the seal known TO-
day ms the Monachus tropicalis a distin-
guishcd characteristic of his seal was TINT
1t placed little or no dependence on it's hind
hippers. Nature had overlooked or slighted
their development. 1t was "a seal without
proper coordination Of movement When
1T wanted to go forward OH the land it had
to arch its back something like n cnterpil-
lar, and then after n prodigious effort its
progress WAS less than foot or 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 Monachrs tropicalis was known
to have existed for several centuries, not "A
single perfect specimen has fallen into the
hands of the naturaists. Dnmpier in 1915
told OF the abundance of these seals and
wrote, The Spuniarls do often come
h1ther ~ ucntam to make oyl OF their
fat" Sir Hans Sloan, who ten wears nfter
Damper visited the Bahamas, wrote that
these islands were filled with seals: Some
times fishers will catch 100 in n night.
They try to melt them and bring or their
VII ioi iHiiJS vi tic lSuI1u. ItrluDS The
last OF these seals is existing today. for
some were taken us late as 1885, but in ten
years from now there will be no more OF
Monachus tropcais. 1t has served As
purpose
In the Swamp, in New York city, that
quarter devoted to leather, one may oc-
casionally see two men lifting into Il truck
what looks like heavy wooden plank,
only of greater width than is cut from
trees. The material is stiff and hard. and
If you strike it you can appreciate how
hard it Is. 1t is walrus hide, used for
bufling wheels, and it is about three inches
thick. The walrus of the northern Pacific
is being eXtcrninated for its tusks. hide
and oil. While whaling WAS profitable the
walrus was passed over, but to-day it is
too valuable On the Atlantic side the
chances of the walrus still existing are
better, because it is much harder to yet.
but when the Pacific walrus becomes r,ir.
the Atlantic one will certainly be sought
for.
Little or nothing is known today about
the rytina, or arctic sea cow-the Rytina
gigas. 1t was related to the mnnatec, or
dugoHg, only it lived far north 1t was a
big creature. certainly twenty-five or thir-
ty feet long, with girth of from fifteen to
twenty feet, and probably an adult would
weigh four tons. 1t had ridiculously
small head and WIS toothless. It's skin
was supposedly tough, not thick, but hard
enough to resist the edge of an aX. 1t was
Sregarous and lived ut the mouths of riy-
ers, pasturins OH seaweed. When Behrng
QI4D was in Kamchatka he saved his
crew from scurvy by taking sea cows 1t
was Il creature SO easy to kill that exter-
mination Soon took place
On Copper island, where this sea COW
was once plentiful, they had become rare
In l1U3. The last one. WAS nrob,hly killed