Extinct animals

“ It must therefore be remembered that all restorations of extinct animals, representing them as in life, are merely the sum of our knowledge concerning them, as close approximations to the real truth as it is possible to make. ”

“ Cause of the Extinction of Species.—There is good reason to believe that the most effective agent in the extinction of species is the pressure of other species, whether as enemies or merely as competitors. If therefore any portion of the earth is cut off from the influx of new or more highly organised animals, we may there expect to find the remains of groups which have elsewhere become extinct. ”

“ So long as animals could exist, they would continue to enjoy life. The conditions unfavourable to them would be equally or more so to their natural enemies. Only the last survivors would meet with what might be regarded as a tragical end. As one description of animal became extinct, another was prepared to occupy its room. If elephants and rhinoceroses perished from the land, countless herds of walruses and seals took their places. If gay insects died and disappeared, shell-fishes and sea-stars were their successors. ”

“ Everywhere the animals which have most recently become extinct resemble more or less closely those which now live in the same country; and where {103}there are exceptions to the rule, we can generally trace them to some changed conditions which have led to the extinction of certain types. ”

“ EXTINCT ANIMALS. Extinct animals, as the term is used in the present article, means those whose species have been exterminated since the advent of man upon the earth, and in most cases, as a matter of fact, by his agency, directly or indirectly. ”

“ No doubt, much of the scepticism with which attempts to restore extinct animals are met by many intelligent people is traceable to the widespread belief that such off-hand and easy-going methods are used in the work. ”

“ And some of the animals that are now extinct owe their extinction, not to their gigantic size, but to their having sought safety rather than adventure, and imprisoned themselves in their mechanical armour of defence. ”

“ It is, perhaps, one of the most interesting discoveries of modern geology, that certain races of animals now extinct have in various ways assumed some of the characteristics presented by animals much higher in the scale of being, that flourish in the present day. ”

“ More than 100 species of Mammalia, in all, were obtained in these caves. Some were living species or closely allied to such; but the majority were extinct, and a considerable number, about one-fourth, belonged to extinct genera, or genera not now inhabiting South America. Stone implements and human remains were found in several of the caves with extinct animals. ”

“ The general effect of these investigations has been to introduce to us a multitude of extinct animals, the existence of which was previously hardly suspected; just as if zoologists were to become acquainted with a country, hitherto unknown, as rich in novel forms of life as Brazil or South Africa once were to Europeans. Indeed, the fossil fauna of the Western Territories of America bid fair to exceed in interest and importance all other known Tertiary deposits put together ”

“ There were to be seen the evidences of man's existence scattered among the remains of animals long ago extinct—animals which must have lived before geological changes which took place ages on ages ago. ”

“ Man has destroyed, and is continually destroying species directly, either for {ix}food or for sport, but also in many other ways he contributes to their destruction. Some species have been exterminated by the introduction of animals of prey, such as rats, cats, mongoose, etc., and we know that also the acclimatisation of other birds, such as the mynah, etc., has proved to be harmful to the native birds. ”

“ They are forced to admit that many species and genera have become extinct—so much is proved by the skeletons of prehistoric beasts found from time to time under the earth's surface. But what they dispute is that there is any connection between those beasts and living animals. ”

“ In Louis Figuier’s World before the Deluge we are favoured with several highly sensational views of extinct monsters; whilst the pen of Dr. Kinns has furnished valuable information as to the “slimy” nature of their blood!
The late Mr. G. Waterhouse Hawkins (formerly a lithographic artist) was for years occupied in unauthorised restorations of various Secondary reptiles and Tertiary mammals, and about 1853 he received encouragement [vi] from Professor Owen to undertake the restorations of extinct animals which still adorn the lower grounds of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. ”

“ Further, it brings before us this remarkable fact, that while in the older periods all the animals whose remains we find are extinct as species, so soon as we enter on the Neozoic we find some which still continue to our time—at first only a very few, but in later and later beds in gradually increasing percentage, till the fossil and extinct wholly disappear in the recent and living. ”

“ There is only one safe path which the naturalist may follow who would tell the story of the meaning and nature of an extinct type of animal life, and that is to compare it as fully as possible in its several bones, and as a whole, with other animals, especially with those which survive. It is easy to fix the place in nature of living animals and determine their mutual relations to each other, because all the organs—vital as well as locomotive—are available for comparison. On such evidence they are grouped together into the large divisions of Beasts, Birds, and Reptiles ”

“ Professor Owen says:—"There are characters in land animals rendering them more obnoxious to extirpating influences, which may explain why so many of the larger species of particular groups have become extinct, whilst smaller species of equal antiquity have survived. In proportion to its bulk is the difficulty of the contest which the animal has to maintain against the surrounding agencies that are ever tending to dissolve the vital bond, and [Pg 91] subjugate the living matter to the ordinary chemical and physical forces. ”

“ It is often no easy matter to form conclusions with regard to [212] the habits of extinct animals; and too much reliance must not be placed on arguments derived from the habits of their living descendants or their near relations. The older geologists fell into this mistake with regard to the Mammoth, as did even Cuvier. Modern elephants are at present restricted to regions where trees flourish with perennial foliage, and, therefore, it was argued that there must have been a change of climate—either gradual or sudden, in the country of the Mammoth. ”

“ Smith Woodward, of the Natural History Museum, recently showed the writer a fossil Plesiosaur that is being set up in the formatore’s shop, in the same manner that a recent skeleton might be. In this, and many other ways, the guardians of the national treasure-house are endeavouring to make the collection intelligible and interesting to the general public. Specimens of extinct animals thus set up, give one a much better idea than when the bones are all lying huddled together on a slab of rock. But it is not always possible to get the bones entirely out of their rocky bed, or matrix. ”

“ Rather must we continue the laborious search for further evidence, not by a study of the anatomy of extinct animals, but by seeking a deeper and more intimate knowledge of the real life-histories of living organisms; for we are still profoundly ignorant of the immensely complex factors which go to make up the conditions of life of the very commonest animal upon this earth. ”

“ It is a fact, that many species of the lower order of animals which once existed are now extinct. It has been asserted and denied, that fossil remains of man have been found, indicating that races which once existed have disappeared from the face of the earth. ”

“ And as on our earth the large animals are gradually becoming extinct on account of the advance of civilization, with the exception of the Tammany Tiger, the American Eagle and the British Lion, I came to the conclusion that on this new sphere likewise, because of its far advanced stage of civilization, they were already extinct. ”

“ In the Lartet Collection, Paris.
We know that man has exterminated a great many noble animals in his time, and, alas! continues to do so at the present time in Africa, and in North and South America. The giraffe and the bison, once so plentiful, are now almost extinct. Primitive man was a hunter, and, as he multiplied, his wants became greater, and more animals were therefore destroyed. Probably the same explanation applies to the great Moa bird of New Zealand, and possibly even to the Megatherium of South America. ”

“ For millions of years countless multitudes of living animals have played their little parts on the earth and passed away, to be buried up in the oozy beds of the seas of old time, or entombed with the leaves that sank in the waters of primæval lakes. The majority of these perished beyond all recovery, leaving not a trace behind; yet a vast number of fossilised remains have been, in various ways, preserved ”

“ They maintain that certain species, which formerly existed, have become extinct, or are now unknown, although formerly known. The assumption of so much recent extinction is no difficulty in their eyes; for they do not judge of its probability by the facility or difficulty of the extinction of other closely-allied wild forms. ”

“ Comparative anatomy has shown that these extinct animals, though often varying much from their modern representatives, are in no respect rude or imperfect; that they have the same appearance of careful planning and elaborate execution, the same combination of ornament and utility, the same nice adaptation to the conditions of their existence, which we observe in modern creatures. ”

“ The degree of our knowledge of the Palæontology of various parts of the world is so unequal, that it will not be advisable to treat the subject under each of our six regions. Yet some subdivision must be made, and it seems best to consider separately the extinct animals of the Old and of the New Worlds. ”

“ In this collection there are extinct species of all the thirty-two genera, excepting four, of the terrestrial quadrupeds now inhabiting the provinces in which the caves occur; and the extinct species are much more numerous than those now living: there are fossil ant-eaters, armadillos, tapirs, peccaries, guanacos, opossums, and numerous South American gnawers and monkeys, and other animals. ”

“ It is doubly difficult because, in the first place, evidence of when these animals died off is only now becoming available, and, secondly, because we must also know how long man hunted them before they became extinct. ”

“ It appears also to be a law of life, illustrated by many extinct groups of animals, that they endure for geological ages, and having fought their battle in life's history, grow old and unable to continue the fight, and then disappear from the earth, giving place to more vigorous types adapted to live under new conditions. ”

“ It is an established fact that large animals more quickly become extinct than small ones. Their families are fewer, to begin with, and they need more food and water ; it is also more difficult for them to hide, and to escape from their enemies. For these reasons, among others, vast hordes of huge monsters have died out, and given place to smaller ones, both in land and sea. And no doubt, if the world goes on long enough, other changes will take place ; the old order of things will be swept away, and men will some day be puzzling over the skeletons of cats and the bones of canary birds. ”

“ But now that we know, from the discovery of flint tools embedded with the remains of extinct animals in districts which have since undergone great geographical changes, that man has existed for an incomparably longer period, and bearing in mind that the most barbarous nations possess domestic dogs, the argument from insufficient time falls away greatly in value. ”

“ Looking next to the extinction of animals, we find that the species found in the oldest deposits containing human remains are in part still extant. Others which are locally extinct we know existed in Europe until historical times, that is, within the last two thousand years. ”

“ There are fossil specimens of animals that still have living representatives. There is no reason why many of those supposed to be extinct may not be alive now. It is well known that many very remarkable animals have become extinct within a comparatively recent period. These great birds, of which More speaks, seem to me to belong to these classes. The dodo was in existence fifty years ago, the moa about a hundred years ago. ”

“ The consequence is, that, while every individual animal and plant dies, the species survives. In the whole history of the animals and plants now existing on the globe, only eight or ten certain examples are on record in which a species has become extinct, and those are some large birds, such as the dinornis and dodo, once inhabitants of the Isle of Bourbon and New Zealand. Every one of the human family, every elephant, every ox, every lion, &c., die, but man, as a species, still lives ”

“ Various lacustrine, estuarine, and other deposits in Europe, North India, and North America, have furnished such a vast number of remains of extinct mammalia, as to solve many zoological problems, and to throw great light on the early distribution and centres of dispersal of various groups of animals. In order to show the bearing of these remains on our special subject, we will first give an account of the extinct fauna of Greece, of the Upper Miocene period; since this, being nearest to Africa and Asia, best exhibits the relations of the old European fauna to those countries. ”