k and Philip Islands! And how brief was the lease of life
accorded to the _Didunculus_, when once the "Pussies" found their way to
the little Samoa isles!

Very many islands have a fauna that is to a great extent peculiar to
themselves. I know that, in Jamaica, the Humming-birds, some of the
Parrots, some of the Cuckoos, most of the Pigeons, many of the smaller
birds, and, I think, all of the Reptiles, are found nowhere else. Nay,
more, that even the smaller islands of the Antilles have each a fauna of
its own, unshared with any other land;--its own Humming-birds, its own
Lizards and Snakes; its own Butterflies and Beetles, its own Spiders,
its own Snails, its own Worms. How likely are some of these very limited
species to become extinguished! By the increasing aggressions of
clearing and cultivating man; by slight changes of level; even by
electric and meteoric phenomena acting very locally. I find that, in
Jamaica, many of the animals peculiar to the island are not spread over
the whole surface, limited as that is, but are confined to a single
small district. In some cases, the individuals are but few, even in that
favoured locality; how easily we may conceive of a season drier than
ordinary, or wetter than ordinary, or a flood, or a hurricane of unusual
violence, or a volcanic eruption, either killing outright these few
individuals, or destroying their means of living, and so indirectly
destroying them by starvation. And then the species has disappeared!

The common Red Grouse, so abundantly seen during the season hanging at
every poulterer's and game-dealer's shop in London, is absolutely
unknown out of the British Isles. It could not live except in wide,
unenclosed, uncultivated districts; so that when the period arrives that
the whole of British land is enclosed and brought under cultivation, the
Grouse's lease of life will expire. We owe it to our hard-worked members
of Parliament to hope that this condition of things may be distant.

[1] See my _Omphalos_,--_passim_.

[2] The gradual but constant elevation of the bed of the Baltic, and the
subsidence of that of the Pacific Ocean, are examples on a large scale.

[3] Gen. x. 5.

[4] _Chlamydotherium_, _Euryodon_, _Glossotherium_, _&c._

[5] Owen _On the Mylodon_.

[6] Perhaps the most complete and the most magnificent skeleton of this
animal ever discovered, was exhumed in 1849 at Killowen, in Co. Wexford.
It was buried _only four feet below the surface_,