The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-10-11
LONDON NEWS.
Topics of Interest in the British
Capital.
One OF the Late Discoveries of the
Scientists-The Question of Voyage te
the South Pole.

One of the Late Discoveries of the
scientisrs-The Question of Voyage to
the South Pole.
London, October 9.-Slowly but surely
a number of creatures are disappearing
from the fauna of the world, and the
process has become more rapid during the
last hundred years. Among these lost or
moribund species is the great aux, which
is now only known from specimen in
collections, or from the occasional discoy-
cry of its bones in circumstances which, lin
themselves often help to explain the cause
of its disappearance. 1t has Just been an
nounced that some bones of the great aux
the north of Ireland. The phrase is in
directly an epitaph: "Kille5 and eaten
by man. was the end of this bird. A
kitchen hidden is nothing more nor less
than a primaeval refuse-heap. The term
is the translation Of the Scandinavian
name, for, as it happens, these refuse
heaps are particularly large and abund-
ant on some parts of the Danish coast.
Practically, they are shell-mounds. Pri-
maeyal man, when he lived upon the sea
coast, made full use of the food which he
found ready to hand. To be fisherman
requires some skill; but to gather mus
sells from the rock may be done by the
lowest savage. So ''the first OYSTER was
an experiment. of such a remote antiquity
that we know not by what manner of
men it was made. Perhaps they had not
even got SO far as to chip fints into
shape; at any rate, in all probability
their handicraft was very primitive, their
notions of dress rudinentary. In Den
mark, on the eastern coast, heaps of
shells, of which the contents have been
eaten. are by no means rare. Sire John
l. lubbock describes, in his ''Pre-historic
Times. one of the largest, at Meilgard,
In North last Jutland, as a great flattish
mount, about ten feet thick in the mid
die, composed almost entirely of shells.
These usually belong to four species-the
oyster, the cookie, the mussel, and the
periwinkle, the first being the commonest
at that particular place. All, it will be
noticed, are still eaten, though the oyster,
from an ordinary article of food, has be-
come a luxury. Besides these, as might
be expected In a refuse heap, which. no
doubt was formed to close a settlement.
other odds and ends are found, though
more rarely, such as bones of various
beasts and birds, chipped fiints or other
stone implements, and fragments Of
very coal Sc pottery. These relics belong
to the Neolithic age-that is, to q time
when men were sufficiently advanced to
have acquired the art OF making weapons
of polished stone though they were
| ignorant of the use OF metals. Such
refuse heaps are met with in other coun-
tries, including our own, more especially
on the coasts of Wales, Scotland, and Ire
land, though they are usually smaller in
size than those in Denmark. In them,
more than once, boththere and in Great
Britain, the bones of the great aux have
been found. Time has brought about its
revenges. In those days the bird was, no
doubt, valued, but simply because it was
good to eat, and there was plenty OF it.
A hundred years ago sailors took exactly
the same view as man in the Stone Age.
Now it Is difficult to imagine what price a
specimen in the flesh would command;
| for in April, 1896, % bid of threeahundred
and fifty guineas was refused for skin,
and at the same timu an egg sold for q
| hundred and eighty guineas.
| The humanltarians of London society
are troubled by their sudden discovery
| that the procuring Of tortoise-shell is at
tended with SO much torture of the un-
| fortunate animals that originally wear
the precious covering that members of
various London humane societies have de-
cided to bring the matter before the
notice of the public.
Combs, hair-pins, cigar and cigarette
cases, and other dainty articles are manu-
factured from the mottled she'll after the
tortoise has been induced by warm per-
suasive measures to ''get out of it,, and
those who feel for the suffering dumb
hone tO discoupta0ancn the uS0 of all ar
ticles made of this material until merciful