In the museums, we stand in awe and wonder before the fossil skeleton of
the Megatherium, and the savants struggle to unveil its past, while the
equally great and marvelous _Rhinoceros indicus_ is being rushed into
oblivion. We marvel at the fossil shell of the gigantic turtle called
_Collosochelys atlas_, while the last living representatives of the
gigantic land tortoises are being exterminated in the Galapagos Islands
and the Sychelles, for their paltry oil and meat; and only one man (Hon.
Walter Rothschild) is doing aught to save any of them in their haunts,
where they can breed. The dodo of Mauritius was exterminated by swine,
whose bipedal descendants have exterminated many other species since
that time.

A failure to appreciate either the beauty or the value of our living
birds, quadrupeds and fishes is the hall-mark of arrested mental
development and ignorance. The victim is _not always to blame_; but in
this practical world the cornerstone of legal jurisprudence is the
inexorable principle that "ignorance of the law excuses no man."

These pages are addressed to my countrymen, and the world at large, not
as a reproach upon the dead Past which is gone beyond recall, but in the
faint hope of somewhere and somehow arousing forces that will reform the
Present and save the Future. The extermination of wild species that now
is proceeding throughout the world, is a dreadful thing. It is not only
injurious to the economy of the world, but it is a shame and a disgrace
to the civilized portion of the human race.

It is of little avail that I should here enter into a detailed
description of each species that now is being railroaded into oblivion.
The bookshelves of intelligent men and women are filled with beautiful
and adequate books on birds and quadrupeds, wherein the status of each