opinion of the locality, a proud and haughty blend of Indian and European. On the banks of the Apure Humboldt passed the night with a dark-brown native, almost guiltless of clothing, and possessed of a wife and daughter whom he called Doña Isabella and Doña Manuela. In this aristocratic company Humboldt proposed eating a chiquire, a large rodent which he had captured, but his host assured him that such Indian game was not proper food for us 'white gentlemen.' So also in Nicaraguan society, however bronze the features, the owners of them are we 'whites.' Nevertheless, the good priest did not think that all vessels had an equal right to sail under false colours. On hearing that the doctor's dog Nero was a Saint Bernard, he declared that it was a sacrilege to name a breed of dogs after the saint. Only when he heard of their usefulness to travellers on the snowy Alps his objection diminished, and 'he made the reflection that without the aid of the holy fathers and their benevolent hounds all traffic between Europe and Italy would be impossible, and his Holiness the Pope in Rome would not be able to receive his tithe at the right time.' Whatever services Nero might under other circumstances have rendered the Pope, in his actual employment he displayed the true instincts of a naturalist. Not to speak of his dealings with alligators, water-fowl, and jaguars, which may rather be attributed to a sporting propensity, there is one example of his behaviour which can only be set down to a real love of science. While his master, seated on a stump of a tree in the little island of Ciste, was occupied in writing, Nero came and stood just in front of him with uplifted head. In his mouth was a small black object, which when taken out proved to be a species of bat. Still the dog stood claiming attention, opening his mouth just enough for fingers to be inserted between his teeth. When five living bats had been drawn out, he showed his satisfaction by barking and leaping. A novice might have thought the incident closed, but the sensible dog well knew the comparative worthlessness of specimens from an unknown or uncertain locality, and therefore motioned to his master to follow him. The hint being taken he led the way to a steep bank. There, thrusting his head into a hole not far up, he drew forth three specimens more.

The only point in the dog's behaviour with which a severe critic might be inclined to find fault is the appearance of rapacity, the evident seizure of more specimens than were needed, a heedlessness about exterminating the whole colony

VOL. CLXXVI. NO. CCCLXI.

E

of bats. One might be disposed to call this conduct inhuman, were there not some considerations which may dispose us rather to call it particularly human.

Now and then the looker-on at a game of chess is worked up into a state of impatient excitement by what appears to be the wilful and unaccountable blindness of one of the players. Were it allowable, by a word or a wink or a movement of the finger, the bystander might save his friend from his ridiculous blundering. Yet nothing can be done, and irremediable disaster follows. In the combat which man wages with other forms of life, to prove himself their owner and lord, to subdue them to his pleasure and his profit, the same thing happens. He is the champion player, sure of success in the protracted tournament. His weapons of precision, his contrivances for speed, his ingenuity in attack and defence, his invincible spirit of adventure, place all animals and plants eventually at his mercy. To save him from his own success would sometimes be a noble exploit. The fireside philosopher follows him with sympathy and admiration in his acts of daring and the varied exhibition of his skill, and at the same time wonders that these great qualities should not unfrequently be attended by a disposition either carelessly selfish or stupidly obtuse. It is not easy or perhaps possible otherwise to account for the extraordinary wastefulness invariably shown by civilised man when objects limited in supply and unappropriated are especially worth having and especially easy to procure. The dispassionate onlooker, it may be said, in this case is at liberty to nod and wink and point the finger as much as he pleases to save his fellow-men from their disastrous mistakes. But that is not quite so true as it sounds. Just as, according to the old saying, inter arma silent leges, so in the enthusiasm of sport, in the zealous pursuit of profit, the admonitions of peaceful literature are little likely to be heard. In Behring Sea and the forests of Venezuela, in the kit of the seaman or the sportsman's knapsack, a copy of the Edinburgh 'Review' will not often be found. Before the immediate object of quest considerations a little more remote vanish from the mind. The very men who may be risking their own lives in order that their children may be a little better off than they otherwise would be, will contribute without a thought or pang of regret to make the whole world poorer by the extinction of some valuable animal or plant. Only by a great movement of public opinion, influencing education on a large scale, can the evil be counteracted. Many

pens and voices must combine before there can be any hope of effectively warning and shaming men into self-restraint in this respect. Of the pitiable unthriftiness which so often disgraces human intelligence and human enterprise more than one striking illustration may be adduced from the volumes now under review.

To begin with, the order of marine mammals called Sirenia is worthy of mention. The Sirens of classical mythology combined with the plumage, the talons, and the disposition proper to a bird of prey the dangerous attractions of a maiden fair and false. Not only were their songs delightful to the ear, but they differed from a tolerable or intolerable number of modern songs in not being silly. The wise Ulysses longed to hear them, and, lest he should be overmastered by their fatal charm, took elaborate precautions which he would never have needed against sound without sense. In course of time the plumage of the Sirens was moulted, or in some other way disappeared, and they developed the scaly tail of a fish, while still retaining the tuneful voice, soft features, and long tresses of a human maid, to allure the over-susceptible mariner to his doom. If in turn these mermaids have withdrawn themselves from the view of an incredulous age, their namesakes the Sirenia are in a fair way to follow them. Of the three genera which this order still contained in the course of the last century there are now only two remaining. The northern sea cow, Rhytina Stelleri, died out in 1768, within less than twenty years of the publication of the description of it by Steller, the Russian naturalist, who was present at its discovery. To say that it died out, is like saying that in such and such a year the Portland vase broke to pieces, as if to imply that it crumbled up by some process of natural decay, not that it was shivered into fragments by the hand of an idiot. The sea cow did not passively die out. It was extinguished by the hand of man. Seeing that it was a monster of the deep, attaining sometimes a length of 28 feet, and very voracious, we might charitably suppose that it was done away with for its wasteful and dangerous qualities, for being treacherous and a man-eater like the fabled Sirens of old. The real state of the case is rather different. The members of this order have been spoken of as in a manner intermediate between the whale and the elephant. There is something human-looking about their upper parts, if seen from a sufficiently great distance and with a sufficiently imaginative eye. But they are not beautiful, they have no

enchanting voice or melodious song, and they are almost hairless. On the other hand they are not in any way savage or treacherous, but on the contrary very simple-minded and confiding, affectionate to their mates and their young. The sea cow was in truth voracious, but it fed on seaweeds, and these it converted in its own substantial person into excellent food for the sailors whose business was on the chill waters of Behring Sea. The economist will not readily refrain from indignation against the foolish greediness which in a few years ruthlessly destroyed this useful supply. The naturalist regrets the extirpation of an animal, itself of unusual structure, a remarkable link in the chain of vertebrate organisation, and one which carried very interesting crustacean parasites that have perished with it. To some minds the pity of it will be brought home from another point of view. In their earliest encounters with it the discoverers of this creature were touched to observe a male coming to the relief of his victimised partner, refusing to be beaten off while her life lasted, and after death returning to the spot for some days as if reluctant to forego the hope of regaining his lost one.

The still extant dugong of the Pacific and other Oriental waters, valuable for its oil and for its flesh, and which like the Rhytina shows intense maternal affection, has been honoured by the establishment of an Australian dugong fishery. The proceedings of the enterprising persons concerned, according to Dr. Murie, are fast sweeping off the once plentiful 'numbers' of the animal for the sake of which the fishery exists.

The manatee, or fish with hands,' which represents the Sirenia in the Atlantic, and ascends many of the rivers of Africa and America, resembles the two genera already mentioned in being of great commercial value. The porklike flesh is particularly well flavoured. When salted and dried in the sun, it will remain good for twelve months. In certain parts of the Orinoco this creature is or was extremely abundant. By some of the Indian tribes it is said to be eaten with great satisfaction, while others have a prejudice against it. At the mission stations Humboldt found it in good acceptance, and remarks with a gentle sarcasm that, as the clergy regard this mammiferous animal as a fish, it is much sought during Lent.' Its fat, under the name of manatee butter, is used, he says, for lamps in the churches, as well as in preparing food. The skin, which Bovallius found to be an inch thick, but to which Humboldt attributes

a thickness of more than an inch and a half, is cut up for cordage, for harness, for riding-whips, and thongs of it were in former times employed for cruelly scourging slaves, and even the free Indians. The manatee is distinguished from all other living vertebrates by having in its neck only six vertebræ instead of the usual seven. Its breasts have been said by an old writer to resemble exactly those of a negress. The hind limbs are represented only by rudiments in the skeleton. The strangely constructed mouth, in the adult destitute of incisors, is adapted for taking in and bruising aquatic vegetation, preparatory to the transfer of it to a stomach divided into several cavities. The animal sometimes attains a length of 12 feet. In a specimen 9 feet long Humboldt was struck with the magnitude of the lungs, 3 feet in length, with very large cells and resembling immense swimming-bladders. The intestines in the same specimen were 108 feet long. Dr. Bovallius describes the dexterity with which the Carib Indians slay these great creatures and then ship them on board their light canoes. As soon as the animal was dead, all the Caribs sprang into the water, tilted the canoe so that it filled, and pressing down one side rolled the manatee in. • The men swimming towed their vessel nearer to the land, ' and after bailing out the water, so took it home to San 'Juan del Norte.' After adding a description of the animal itself, he winds up with this melancholy conclusion, based on the fact that the creature is very valuable, and the pursuit of it well repaid: Probably, therefore, the time is not 'far distant when the manatee will be completely extinct, and have become, like its relative the Rhytina, a mere remem'brance.' The measures taken by the British and American governments to prevent the extermination of the seals in the Behring Sea rose to the importance of an international question, and a formal treaty has been signed to prevent the destructive and inhuman practice of killing seals for the sake of their young in the breeding-months, which would soon have left no seals to be killed.

The rapacity or want of common sense which leads men to destroy some of their best treasures in the animal kingdom is no less conspicuous in their dealings with plant life. The collection of caoutchouc is an important industry in Central America. This elastic gum is there derived from a species of wild fig, Castilloa elastica. From ulli, the Aztec name for the gum, the collectors have been named ulleros. These consist of Indians, negroes, and half-breeds. Their expe