| Show vanished from froin unman ken ell what strikes us its most markedly in ili reading tho the look book ot of the rolas roils is not lot so much tile the strange forms which are por brayed in its pages is as the tact fact that so ninny malty of them are arc extinct indeed except lit in the very newest of 0 formations it Is extremely rare to come upon any ally forms which can even approximately be considered identical with aur any now living on tile the face ol of the earth all are vanished species whit Is more when we once get at clear of 0 any formation it Is the rarest possible occurrence ever ng again alit to see sec any of the species of fossils characteristic of it each period of the worlds history hall had its ov om it fauna and flora that Is its ait oit 0 it assemblage of 0 animals and plants and once they disappear they are arc gone one forever yet within the historic period we know of the extermination of only a few animals and of no species of plants at all even then the extinct animals hate in every instance met their fate at the hand band of man the dodo 1 a I cut ceilous long bird of 2 mauritius 1 and the solitaries bollt aries of the island of reunion and rodriguez oz x were ere exterminated by ruthless seamen within the last two centuries the moa kioa of 0 new zealand lived long iong after the laoris maoris reached these islands the great auk and the labrador duel duck lave have ceased to exist from nu an identical cause within the memory of man inan tile the philip island parrot Is a still more recent loss tile the only mammal which can be said for certain to have been utterly destroyed from off the face of the earth la Is the gigantic sea cow rby tina of behring strait though when hen it was first discovered and took look the taste of the seamen who liked oily beef its numbers wore were small and seemed on the wane these and a I 1 few other species of less interest Inte iest form the total extinctions extinct ions ot of which history preserves any record dut but in the composing the earths crust there tire are the remains ot of thousands which disappeared ages and a ages aes es before man came upon the earth our earth anil and its story |
