It is stated that the quagga, the beautiful wild striped
ass of South Africa, has suddenly ceased to exist. The boot. makers of London and New York wanted his skin for a par- ticular kind of sportsman's boot, and he consequently passed away out of zoology. There may be a few left on the highest and wildest plateaus, but the Boers, tempted by the high prices, have extirpated the herds which only ten years ago existed in South Africa. That will be the fate of the elephant, too, and possibly of the crocodile. It takes whole provinces to supply ivory for one advertising firm in Oxford Street, the price is fourfold the price of a quarter of a century ago, and the beasts are hunted with a persistency which in no long time must be fatal. The Indian Government' is making efforts to protect the Asiatic breed ; but they will all be futile. Animals which when dead are exceedingly valuable, contract a habit of dying, and laws establishing close-time are powerless when it is worth while to run the risk of breaking them. The crocodile's skin is used by smokers and parse- makers, and so he will disappear. Whatever Europe wants, Europe will have ; and if the fashion of turning tigers' claws into brooches had developed and spread to America, tigers would have perished out. There will soon not be a bird of paradise on earth, and the ostrich has only been saved by private breeders. Man will not wait for the cooling of the world to con- sume everything in it, from teak-trees to humming-birds, and a century or two hence will find himself perplexed by a planet in which there is nothing except what he makes. He is a poor sort of Creator.
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