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Lost and Vanishing Birds .p d^ LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS FRONTISPI ECE Plate I. GR EAT BUSTAR DS " LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS Being a Record of some Remarkable Extinct Species and a Plea for some Threatened Forms By CHARLES DIXON author of 'the migration of birds" "curiosities of bird life' "the nests and eggs of BRITISH BIRDS ETC. ETC. ETC. WITH TEN PLATES BY CHARLES WHYMPER LONDON: JOHN MACQUEEN MDCCCXCVIII •f" ; PREFACE ^ /^NE of the saddest features of civilisation is ^-^ the disappearance of so many beautiful and curious creatures from this world of ours. From all parts of the earth the same story comes ; and we now seem to be within measurable distance of a time when wrecks and remnants of once compact and indigenous assemblages of organisms will be all that remain to us, and such a thing as a complete fauna will be unknown. This is not only a crime, but the violation of a sacred trust which we hold for posterity. Civilisation has already ground away under its merciless heel most of the faunal facies of Europe; Asia fares but little better, and is fast being reduced to the same state Africa is being rapidly depleted of all its most curious and striking forms of animal life ; Austral- asia is a wretched object lesson of civilised man's 6 PREFACE exterminating progress ; whilst North America has already lost some of its ancient types, and is fast losing the remainder: South America alone re- tains its prehistoric fauna in greatest completeness, although even here the sad work of extermination has commenced. Birds have suifered severely in this general spoliation, and their extermination and persecution furnish material for some of the saddest chapters in the annals of ornithology. In the present volume an effort has been made not only to focus in a popular form our knowledge of the species we have lost and are still likely to lose, but to excite a greater interest in the protec- tion of birds, particularly in those species, at home and abroad, that are more or less threatened with extermination at the present time. So far as British birds are concerned, we have dealt with all the recently extinct and threatened species; but of course it would be utterly im- possible, within the limits of this small volume, to treat exotic species with the same fulness. We have, however, carefully selected a few of the most interesting and desperate cases on which to hang our plea for the better protection of all. Some of the most interesting extinct species have also been included. PREFACE 7 We are convinced that much of the effort now being made on behalf of doomed or threatened birds is misdirected ; and if the present work not only helps in some measure to devise more rational methods, but also excites a wider sympathy for those vanishing species, its principal purpose will have been attained. p -pv Paignton, October 1897. CONTENTS -> LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS PACK Introduction—The Extermination of Species 13 PART I LOST AND VANISHING BRITISH BIRDS Lost British Birds Savi's Waeblee {Loeustella luscinioides) . .43 The Spoonbill {Platalea leucorodia) . .48 The Bittern {Botaurus steUaris) . .54 The Crane {Grus cinerca) . .60 The Great Bustard {Otis tarda) . .67 The Avocet {Recurvirostra avoeetta) . .73 The Black-tailed Godwit {Limosa melanura'- . 73 The Black Tern {Sterna nigr-a) . .83 The Great Auk {Alca impcnnis) . .87 Vanishing British Birds ' The Bearded Titmouse {Panurus biarmicus) . 98 The St. Kilda Wren {Troglodytes hirtensis) . 104 CONTENTS Vanishing Bkitish Birds—continued PAGE The Hoopoe {Upupa eiwps) 108 The Osprey (Pandlon haliccehis) . 113 The Kite {Milvus regalis) .... 119 The Common Buzzard {Buteo vulgaris) . 125 The Golden Eagle {Aquila chryscetus) 130 The White-tailed Eagle {Haliceetus alhicilla) . 136 The Honey Buzzard {Pernis apivorus) 142 The Marsh Harrier {Circus certtginosus) 147 Montagu's Harrier [Circus cineraceus) . 152 The Hen Harrier {Circus cyansus) 157 The Dotterel {Eudromias morinelhis) 162 The Kentish Sand Plover {^gialophilus cantianus) 167 The Ruff {Machetes pugnax) 173 The Red-necked Phalarope {Phalaropus hyperboreus) 179 The Roseate Tern {Sterna dougalli) 185 The Great Skua {Stercorarius catarrhactes) 190 Some Threatened British Species 196 PAET II LOST AND VANISHING EXOTIC BIRDS Lost Exotic Birds The Mamo {Drepanis pacifica) 211 The Dodo {Didus inept^ts) .... 215 The Solitaire {Pezophaps solitaria) 220 The Pied Duck {Camptolaimus lahradorius) 226 Pallas's Cormorant {Phalacrocorax perspicillatus) 231 Some Other Extinct Forms 234 CONTENTS II Vanishing Exotic Birds PAGE The Carolina Paroquet {Conurus carolinensis) . 237 The Owl Parrot {Strigops habroptilus) 242 The Passenger Pigeon {Edopistes migrcdorius) . 245 The California Vulture (Pseudogryiihus californianus) 250 The Heath Hen {Tympanitchus cupido) . 254 The American Turkey {Mcleagris americana) 256 The Aldabran Rail {Dryolimnas aldabranus) 261 The Kiwis (Apterygidae) . • 266 Struthious Birds : Ostriches, Rheas, Emus, and Cassowaries ..... 271 Some Threatened Exotic Species 283 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE INTRODUCTION THE EXTERMINATION OF SPECIES PERHAPS few readers are aware (unless they be experienced and professed zoologists) how very sensitive species are to any changes in their surroundings : on the one hand, quick to take advantage of anything in their favour; on the other hand, as readily injured by adverse conditions. These latter may be of the most varied character, and make their influence felt in a very complicated or indirect manner, the relations not only between one species and another, but with their environ- ment, being most complex. Many instances might be given to illustrate how complex are the relations, not only of one species to another, but to the environment of those species, or, in other cases, to the utter dependence for existence of species upon their neighbours. During the lapse of unnumbered 14 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS ages, all living things have been (and still continue to be) unceasingly striving, under the influence of certain well-recognised laws, to adapt themselves to more or less constantly changing conditions of existence. What is popularly known as the " balance of nature " is the primal result of these incessant efforts of organisms, one acting upon the other in countless ways, to maintain a place in the ranks of struggling life. We can very forcibly illustrate these remarks by quoting one or two classical instances recorded by Darwin. Certainly one of the most complex of these is that which illustrates the intricate connection between, and in- terdependence upon, such widely different organisms as a carnivorous animal and a scented yet lowly flower. Perhaps every reader may be aware that certain flowers absolutely depend upon the visits of insects to fertilise them. They cannot produce seed without such visits; and in a great many instances this fertilisation can only be accomplished by a certain species of insect. Now, one of our commonest flowers, the red clover, is largely, perhaps we might almost say entirely, fertilised by our little friend the humble-bee. If these bees do not visit the clover flowers, those flowers are sterile and produce no seeds. But the humble-bees INTRODUCTION 15 have a deadly enemy in the field-mice, which destroy, it has been computed, no less than two- thirds of their nests and combs. The mice in their turn are destroyed by cats, Owls, Kestrels ; so that in localities where the enemies of mice are common the bees have more chance of multiplying, and the flowers a correspondingly greater facility for fertilisation. The abundance of clover in a district may therefore depend upon the number of cats, of Owls and Kestrels ! Take another instance. Darwin has recorded some very curious effects produced by the planting of several hundred acres of Scotch fir on a large heath in Staffordshire. In a quarter of a century the change produced in the vegetation was very remarkable, plants having appeared or disappeared in obedience to the altered conditions, whilst many other organisms were un- doubtedly similarly affected. One more instance must suffice, and this we may quote from Darwin's " great work on The Origin of Species : In several parts of the world insects determine the existence of cattle. Perhaps Paraguay offers the most curious instance of this, for here neither cattle nor horses nor dogs have ever run wild, though they swarm southward and northward in a feral state ; and Azara and Rengger have shown that this i6 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS is caused by the greater numbers, in Paraguay, of a certain fly which lays its eggs in the navels of these animals when first born. The increase of these flies, numerous as they are, must be habitually checked by some means, probably by other parasitic insects. Hence, if certain insectivorous birds were to decrease in Paraguay, the parasitic insects would probably increase ; and this would lessen the number of the navel-frequenting flies. Then cattle and horses would become feral, and this would greatly alter (as, indeed, I have observed in parts of South America), the vegetation; this, again, would largely aflect the insects; and this, as we have just seen in Staffordshire, the insectivorous birds ; and so onward, in ever-increasing circles of complexity. Not that under nature the relations will ever be as simple as this. Battle within battle must be continually recurring with varying success ; and yet in the long-run the forces are so nicely balanced that the face of nature remains for a long time uniform, though assuredly the merest trifle would give the victory to one organic being over another." Most, if not all, organisms are therefore so delicately adapted to their environment, that they quickly become sensitive to the least disturbing INTRODUCTION 17 element, either for good or for evil, profiting readily by the former, and being adversely affected by the latter, even to the extent of more or less rapid extinction.
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