The New International Encyclopædia/Extinct Animals

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. It is not to be presumed that a complete list of species so exterminated could be given, since many, no doubt, completely disappeared before any sort of record began. Others, as we know or suspect, survived into the era of prehistoric man, but not later. Many species, however, have disappeared, not only since written records began, but within the past century or even within the memory of men now living; and it is these which will demand most attention.

Exterminating Influences. The causes of the disappearance noted arise from man's varied utilization of nature for his benefit or pleasure. Directly, he destroys animals (1) for the sake of their flesh as food, or of their skins as clothing, bedding, or shelter, and for various utilizations of other parts and products; (2) because they may be dangerous to his life, or troublesome to his enterprises or comfort; (3) in sport; (4) by domestication. Indirectly, animals suffer, sometimes to the extinction of their species, by man's clearing of the forests, draining of marshes, burning over areas by prairie and forest fires, damming or divergence of rivers, fencing in and cultivation of the ground, thus destroying pasturage and other food, limiting movement, and in many ways interfering with animal methods and means of obtaining a livelihood. Another potent influence is man's turning loose upon wild life new enemies in the shape of his domestic dogs, cats, rats, goats, or hogs, or of introduced exotic animals, all of which, intentionally or otherwise, are injurious to some or many wild creatures, and in some instances have been the principal agent in the extermination of lost forms. Many minor circumstances have contributed to the depletion or disappearance of animals in all the more civilized parts of the earth; and it must be remembered that the extinction of any species has a distinct effect upon some or many others. Thus the removal of the herbivorous quadrupeds from a region would result in death by starvation of all the larger carnivores of that region.

Extermination of Animals by Prehistoric Men. Just how far we are to attribute to the direct agency of primitive man the extinction of forms that evidently survived until after his advent upon the earth must be a matter largely of opinion. There seems good reason to suppose that the last of various species of moa-like birds were destroyed by the primitive inhabitants of New Zealand and Madagascar; but there is a fair possibility that the cold of the Glacial Period is wholly responsible for the end of a group that no doubt was waning. The same remarks apply to the mammoth and mastodon. That man was contemporary with the last of the mammoths in southern Europe seems indubitable: that the American mastodon was ever seen alive by human eyes is, on the other hand, very doubtful. At any rate, the termination of their career over the vast areas of the northern half of our hemisphere cannot be attributed to human hands. Paleolithic man probably hunted not only the mammoth, but several other animals whose early extinction may have been hastened in southern Europe, such as the huge sabre-toothed tigers (Machærodus), the ancient grizzly and brown bear, the larger varieties of the lion and spotted and striped hyenas, the woolly rhinoceros Rhinoceros tichorinus) and related species, and various smaller animals long extinct. Some of these were northern, like the musk-ox, reindeer, Arctic fox, etc.; others southern, like the African elephant and hippopotamus. In the changes of climate which accompanied and followed the Glacial Period these and other species disappeared from southern Europe, to survive, if at all, only in the north or in Africa, as their adaptations required. Certain species we know or may feel sure survived until destroyed by mankind. Such was the case with the great-horned Irish deer (see Deer; Elk), which assuredly survived until the close of the ‘Bronze Age.’ The two most interesting instances of prehistoric extermination, however, are those of the horse and the camel. The wild stock of neither of these has been certainly known within historic times. How long it may have survived in Asia or northern Africa we have no present means of knowing; still less of answering the question whether any indigenous horse was contemporary with early man in South America. Much evidence exists, however, of the presence of native horses in Europe well on into the Neolithic period of human settlement there. They were hunted and killed mainly for food, no doubt, but seem to some extent to have been domesticated. Just how long they lasted is uncertain, but it seems indubitable that man is responsible for their ultimate extinction. Whether, at some earlier period, a separate species of dog, the founder of the races of domestic dogs, ever existed, or if so was exterminated after partial domestication by man, is purely conjectural. (See Dog.) The saiga was killed off in southwestern Europe prehistorically, but has survived eastward.

Extermination in the Old World Within Historic Times. Since written records began, several species have vanished from the fauna of Europe, but remain elsewhere, or are preserved in carefully guarded remnants. The lion, tiger, leopard, and various wildcats once inhabited the valley of the Danube, and the lion was common there in Roman times. When the Romans first penetrated central and western Europe they found numerous not only the ‘bonasus,’ which we now mistakenly call the aurochs, but a race of great wild cattle. Mere remnants of these (see Bison; Cattle) remain in a more or less impure condition on private preserves. The native roe and fallow deer (qq.v.) would long ago have perished had they not been protected and bred in parks and hunting forests. The chamois of the Alps survives only under legal protection, which has not sufficed to keep the ibex, now utterly extinct. The same might be said of certain lesser animals. Brown bears existed in Scotland up to the time of Edward the Confessor, but not later, and the last reindeer disappeared from Caithness about the same time. The beaver probably remained in Scotland and Wales until the thirteenth century. Wild boars were hunted until the end of the seventeenth century, and the wolf eluded his doom much longer, the last one being killed in England during the reign of Henry VIII., in Scotland in 1740, and in Ireland in 1775.

Asia furnishes few or no examples of animal extinction of importance since written records began, with the exception of the rhytina and a cormorant, both of which once dwelt on islands off the coast of Kamchatka. The rhytina was a sea-cow, closely related to the manatee (q.v.), but much larger, which was confined to the Commander Islands in Bering Sea, where it was discovered by the expedition of Bering, which was wrecked there in 1741. During the next twenty years these islands were constantly visited by seal and fur hunters, who slaughtered the animals to obtain their beef-like flesh. It has been estimated by Stejneger (American Naturalist, vol. xxii., Philadelphia, 1887), who made local investigations, that not more than 3000 rhytinas herded there altogether, and the last one was killed about 1768. In the same island group, and nowhere else, there dwelt a very large but small-winged cormorant (q.v.) called Pallas's, after the Russian naturalist, its first describer. It was stupid and slow in its movements, furnished excellent flesh, and although a few survived the occasional visits of hungry sea hunters until 1839, at least, the end then came.

Liability of Insular Faunas to Destruction. The examples just recounted illustrate many cases in which inhabitants of small islands have succumbed to changes in their limited circumstances. Thus the New Zealand group has lost several birds which were either confined to isolated and limited places or were helpless to escape from European colonists. A certain quail (Coturnix) and the owl parrot (Nestor) are gone; and of two species of kaka parrots (Nestor productus and Norfolkensis) none remains upon either Philip or Norfolk islands, where they abounded respectively previous to 1850. Several other Australasian species which spend their lives upon the ground are weak of flight, and, unaccustomed to such enemies, are rapidly disappearing under persecution by rats, and by imported ferrets, weasels, etc., introduced by the English settlers in an unwise attempt to subdue the plague of rabbits, which they had previously ‘acclimatized.’ One of the forms most threatened are the curious flightless weka (q.v.) rails, of which closely allied species once existed on Norfolk Island, on Lord Howe Island, and on one of the Chatham Islands. Dixon quotes Dr. Forbes in the statement that seventeen species of birds that formerly lived on Chatham Island have become extinct. The civilization of the Sandwich Islands has led to the destruction of several birds, one of which, the mamo (q.v.). was sought for the sake of its rich 1 yellow feathers, used as an ornament of the cloaks of the chiefs, until none remained; another, related to the wattle-crows, succumbed to the clearing of certain brushy woods by cattle and goats. Tahiti seems to have lost, utterly a certain rail (Prosobonia leucoptera) and Latham's white-winged sandpiper (Hypotænidia Pacifica); and another shore-bird (Æchmorynchus) has died out in the Christmas Island group.

The most conspicuous examples of island birds extinguished since white men discovered their isolated homes are afforded, however, by Mauritius and the neighboring islands of the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, when rediscovered by the Dutch at the end of the sixteenth century, was inhabited by that singular and inept bird the dodo (q.v.), relations of which (see Solitaire) have perished likewise in the islands of Réunion and Rodriguez. In Mauritius, besides the dodo, at least two species of parrot, a dove, a large coot, and a second ralline bird, abnormally flightless and long-billed, called Aphanapteryx, have become extinct. Réunion, also, once had other birds now lost, and so had Rodriguez. In Réunion, a somewhat abnormal starling, Fregilupus, existed until about 1850, while from Rodriguez the greater part of its original avifauna has vanished. There were a small but peculiar owl (Athene murivora), a big parrot (Necropsittacus Rodericanus), a dove (Erythræna, sp. ign.), a large brevipennate heron (Ardea megacephala), and a singular rail, besides other birds of which we know from the old voyagers.

The destruction of bird life in these islands was due not only to direct chase by man, but indirectly to the introduction of domestic or other animals. The hogs let loose in the Mascarene Islands finished the dodos and their relatives, and rats have done great mischief in Oceanica. Fires, too, have burned the coverts, destroyed nests and eggs, and killed much or all of the food of many species by consuming reptiles, insects, mollusks, worms, etc., great numbers of species of which are also to be counted among the animals recently extinct. This agency was especially potent in the Antilles.

The turtle tribe presents a parallel case of extinction in the island inhabiting species of gigantic tortoise (q.v.)—isolated survivors of forms widespread during the later Tertiary age. During the historic period various species of the gigantic tortoises have been numerous on the Mascarene Islands, on Aldabara, a small island northwest of Madagascar, and on the Galapagos Islands, west of South America. At the end of the seventeenth century they existed by thousands in Mauritius (three species). Rodriguez (one species), and Réunion (one species). In Mauritius they were still abundant until about 1750, when they became so scarce that importations from Rodriguez were made by the shipload, as food for the garrison; and the continuance of these supplies (also sent to the Seychelles), together with the constant destruction of the eggs, exhausted the stock of tortoises about the end of the eighteenth century. Those of Réunion had vanished long before; and a single aged captive at Saint Louis, Mauritius, still alive in 1895, at an age probably approaching 200 years, is the sole survivor of the great herds of Rodriguez. Aldabara had originally four species, one of which, the elephant tortoise, only survives, and is very scarce. The Galapagos possessed several species, all good for food, and now destroyed with the exception of a few on Albemarle Island, and about 100 specimens living in various zoological gardens. See Tortoise.

Africa has been the scene of extraordinarily rapid changes in faunal characteristics during the last century, and its later decades have witnessed the extermination as wild game, if not absolutely, of many of the largest and finest quadrupeds in its list. The herds of elephants, buffaloes, antelopes, and other grazers which thronged upon the plains and in the forests of South and Central Africa when Europeans began to colonize there, were past counting.

This wealth of game was ruthlessly destroyed by Arab and Portuguese traders and Dutch farmers, and then by English and German sportsmen, settlers, and hide-hunters—the last the worst agents of destruction, as has been the case in America. The result has been the depletion of game throughout all the more open regions, until now many species, exceedingly numerous previous to 1850, have become rare, and obtainable only in remote districts, while several species of the finest of African quadrupeds have totally vanished. One of these is the square-mouthed rhinoceros (Rhinoceros simus), none of which has been seen for several years. Another lost species, and one greatly to be regretted, is the true quagga (Equus quagga), a magnificent wild horse which originally roamed over South Africa, but was killed off by the Boers, first as food for their black servants, and later for the hides, until it utterly disappeared by 1875 or 1880. An even earlier date had witnessed the extermination of the true or mountain zebra (q.v.), which lingered somewhat longer in the Abyssinian interior, but seems now entirely gone. Several of the larger antelopes have met or seem about to share the fate of these lost horses. The eland has been nearly extirpated by Dutch hide-hunters. The blaubok (Hippotragus leucophæus) has long been extinct, and its relatives the magnificent sable and roan antelopes (qq.v.) are growing rare; the white-tailed gnu (q.v.) is on the verge of extinction, except for a few preserved as captives; the bontebok and blessbok (qq.v.) are rapidly approaching the same fate; and the giraffe, on account of its incessant persecution by men in search of its valuable hide, remains numerous only in the remote waterless regions of the northern Kalahari Desert. A monkey (Colobus Kirki) of limited distribution on West Coast and the island of Zanzibar is now supposed to be extinct. See Hartbeest.

Extermination in America. The list of the larger animals lost to America since its rediscovery and settlement by Europeans is a long one. Whether or not a native horse lingered in small numbers in South America is a matter of dispute. If there was such an animal, it so quickly disappeared and was replaced by herds of escaped Spanish horses as to have left no trace of itself. The story of the extermination of the bison, of which the only remaining wild remnant at the opening of the twentieth century was a herd of about 250 in the forests north of the North Saskatchewan, is familiar to most readers. See Bison.) Several marine mammals of our shore have suffered or are doomed to speedy extinction. The ease of the rhytina of Bering Sea has been noticed. Its relative, the manatee, is all but extinct in Florida, and rare elsewhere. The fur-seal of the North Pacific (see Seal) seems likely to die out within a few years, as also does the walrus, now wholly Arctic, except in the neighborhood of Bering Strait. There formerly existed in great numbers along the Californian coast a local sea-elephant (see Elephant Seal) which until about 1850 furnished profitable sealing. This ended in 1884, when what were probably the last living specimens on the coast were taken at San Cristobal Island, for preservation in the United States National Museum. The few elephant seals still remaining about Cape Horn represent an expiring race. The West Indian monk seal (Monachus tropicalis), once common around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, had been mainly killed off by 1850, and since then has lingered only on a small group of islets, the Triangles, north of Yucatan, where an accident may easily put an end to the small band.

In respect to birds, the New World has suffered much loss by the changes incident to civilization. The best known case, perhaps, is that of the great auk (see Garefowl), which was literally hunted off the face of the earth. It should be said, however, as in several other cases, that this species had a very limited distribution and was waning. Its migrations once extended southward along the west coast of Great Britain to the Bay of Biscay, in Europe; and in America southward to Cape Hatteras. Evidence of this is derived from finding its bones in prehistoric shell-heaps along the coast. It seems to have occasionally visited Norway, but it never was an Arctic bird. Its extermination was no doubt largely effected prehistorically, for within the time of records it has rarely been known to visit even the Hebrides, and its breeding places were few. It had bred abundantly from time immemorial on the Garefowl Skerries, off the southwest coast of Iceland, and might have remained there yet had not a volcanic disturbance in 1830 destroyed the islets. The survivors fled to Eldey Island, but as this was more accessible, the colony was raided repeatedly by fishermen, and in 1844 the last pair of auks was killed. This ended the history of the garefowl in Europe. How long certain Greenland colonies lasted is not known. In 1534 the men sailing with Jacques Cartier to the discovery of the Saint Lawrence River found on Funk Island, off Cape Bonavista, on the northeastern coast of Newfoundland, a resort of these and other sea-birds, where the ‘penguins’ (for this term was first applied to this species, and later transferred to the Spheniscidæ) were breeding in thousands. The indiscriminate slaughter of these birds came to an end at an uncertain time, probably about 1840. According to a list published in England in 1888, 79 skins were known to exist, with 10 skeletons and 68 eggs. A third of these are preserved in public museums in various parts of the world, and the remainder are privately owned. When by chance these remains are sold very high and rapidly increasing prices are paid. At a notable auction sale of an ornithological collection in London in 1895, one skin in excellent condition was sold for 360 guineas (about $1800), and an egg brought 180 guineas (about $900). A very complete account of the history of the great auk, together with a full bibliography, may be found in F. A. Lucas's account of his expedition to Funk Island, in 1887, to recover relics of the bird, published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1888.

The next most conspicuous instance of the loss of an American species of bird is the case of the wild or ‘passenger’ pigeon, which within the last half of the nineteenth century disappeared (but not completely), in a manner not easily accounted for, from a great region in the central United States where previously it had been surpassingly numerous. Its history will be found in the article Pigeon. The Eastern pinnated grouse (see article Grouse) survives only in a few examples on the island of Nantucket, which, in spite of legal protection, seem destined to early extinction by semi-wild housecats. The Carolina parrakeet (q.v.) is a small parrot once very common throughout the lower Mississippi Valley, now to be found (if at all) only in a few remote swamps of the Gulf Coast; and the large Cuban macaw (Ara tricolor) is supposed to he wholly extinct. Another bird of that region, the ivory-billed woodpecker (q.v.), is probably wholly gone. It is believed that the Antilles and lesser of the West Indian islands have been deprived of many species of birds and other animals since they were first colonized, because recent collectors have been unable to find several species described by early writers, and others have become extremely rare. Newton mentions the loss of a species of petrel (Æstrelata hæsitata) of Dominica killed off by a carnivorous marsupial unintentionally introduced into that island; and the mungoos (q.v.) is extirpating a related petrel in Jamaica. Finally, the California condor (q.v.) has been added most lately to the list of vanished American birds, not a single pair apparently remaining, even in the deserts of Lower California.

For the decrease or disappearance of certain fishes, see Fisheries and Fish Culture.

Bibliography. Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting (London, 1874); Harting, British Animals Extinct Within Historic Times (London, 1880); Wallace, Island Life (London and New York, 1880); Buller, Birds of New Zealand (2d ed., London, 1888); Newton, Dictionary of Birds (London and New York, 1893-96); Bryden, Nature and Sport in South Africa (London, 1897); Dixon, Lost and Vanishing Birds (London, 1898); Annual Report of Smithsonian Institution for 1888 (Washington, 1889). Consult, also, standard works of zoölogy, and the bibliography under Domestic Animals, and the various titles referred to in the body of the article.