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Extinction of Species: Rhytina

FIG. 17. RHYTINA STELLERI. (After J. Fr. Brandt.) Steller's Sea-cow (Rhytina Stelleri of Cuvier) was a mammal allied to the Manatees and Dugongs; it was discovered by Behring in 1768 on a small island lying off the Kamtchatkan coast. It measured as much as from twenty-eight to thirty-five feet in length, and was soon nearly exterminated by Behring's party and other voyagers who visited the island. The last one of which there is any record was killed in 1854.* * A. E. Nordenskiöld, The Voyage of the 'Vega,' vol. i. p. 272, et seq. London, 1881, To the above may be added the Didunculus, a species of ground-pigeon peculiar to the Samoa Islands, and the Nestor productus, a parrot of Norfolk Island. An extended list might be prepared, from fossil evidences, of other species which were at one time associated with those I have enumerated. FIG. 18. RHYTINA STELLERI. (From "The Voyage of the Vega. ") In conclusion, I may point out that that excellent naturalist Pliny* records the disappearance, in his days, of certain species formerly known. He mentions the Incendiary, the Clivia, and the Subis (species of birds), and states that there were many other birds mentioned in the Etruscan ritual, which were no longer to be found in his time. He also says that there had been a bird in Sardinia resembling the crane, and called the Gromphæna, which was no longer known even by the people of the country.

Local Extinction.