Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1900 — ANIMALS REDISCOVERED. [ARTICLE]

ANIMALS REDISCOVERED.

Two Important Finis of Interest to the Naturalists. Every one who is solicitouelor the preservation and protection of vanishing bird fauna will hear with interest of the rediscovery near Invercargill cf Mantell’a notornis, . the large, flightless gallinuls of New Zealand. Little more than 50 years have elapsed since the firjt bones of this creature were sent to England, and determined by Prof. Owen to belong to a bird of the rail family, of which we have in Britain seven examples; four of them, the landrail, the water rail, the coot and the moor hen, being generally familiar, while the other three are more or less frequent visitors to our islands. As<the imperfect skull on which Owen based his opinion was clearly fossil, it was believed that the bird was extinct, but within two years a couple of skins were aent to England by Walter Mantell, son of the eminent paleontologist, and in 1850 the father had the satisfaction of bringing before the Zoological society the results of his son’s finds, which are now to be seen in the bird gallery of the Natural History museum. From these specimens visitors may see what- the notornis was like; while, in addition to illustration in Sir Walter Bullen’s “Birds of New Zealand,” which appeals to ornithologists, there have been published figures of the birds in books intended for the general public. Unfortunately, the bones of these two examples were not preserved, so that our national collection is without a skeleton, though there is one, the skull of which is imperfect, in Dresden, and another in Dunedin museum. The rediscovery of the bird may perhaps give rise to hopes, scarcely likely to be realized, of the retention of this form for some time longer in the New Zealand avifauna. From the nature of the case it seems hardly possible to adopt measures of protection for the few stragglers that may yet survive, though the legislators and scientific men at the antipodes should be able to take such measures as will insure the utilization to the full of all material that may come to hand.

From South America comes-still stranger news—the confirmation of the long rumored discovery of a living representative of the gigantic ground sloth. Some years ago a collector named Ramon Lista reported to Dr. Amcghino, of Buenos Ayres, that he had shot at a mysterious animal in the interior of Santa Crux, in the southern portion of the Argentine territory. According to his description, the animal in size and.'shape resembled a pankolin—the scaly ant eater of the old world—but was without scales and covered with reddish hair. He was confident that he had hit the creatu/e, which was proof against his bullet, and disappeared in the thick brushwood, where long and careful search proved ineffectual. The collector was known to be a competent naturalist, a good observer and a trustworthy man. Nevertheless, the tale seemed so extraordinary that Dr. Ameghino felt sure that Lista had been in some way mistaken. Yet the correctness of his observations has now been completely vindicated, for some remains of an animal shot by Indians in Patagonia have recently been sent to Dr. Ameghino, and these, in his opinion, put the existence of this x creature, heretofore unknown to science, beyond doubt. The skin has no scales, but imbedded in it are bony plates comparable to those of the mylodon, one of the gigantic ground sloths which, too bulky to be ahoreul, procured their food by supporting themselves on the hind limbs and tail and tearing down the branches of trees. The larger forms, which rivaled the .elephant in size, became, extinct in the pleistocene period, but in tertiary times a smaller form seems to have existed. Justice has at last been done to the memory of Lista, who died in exploring the Pilcomayo, for in naming this important find Neomylodon Listai Dr. Ameghino has at once expressed his opinion as to its relationship and commemorated the only naturalist who has seen the animal in the flesh. —London Standard.