From his blanched lips what screams of wild agony spring!
There’s a rush through the fern-fronds,
A yell of affright,
And the Savage and Sabre-tooth
Close in fierce fight,
As the red sunset smoulders and blackens to night.”[201]
Many and fierce these conflicts must have been, for the wild beasts were still strong and numerous, and man had not yet the skill and weapons which he has since acquired. But rough and savage though he may have been, he had powers which made him superior to all around him. For already he knew how to make and use weapons to defend himself, and how to cover himself at least with skins as protection from cold and damp. Moreover, he had a brain which could devise and invent, a memory which enabled him to accumulate experience, and a strong power of sympathy which made him a highly social being, combining with others in the struggle for life.
And so from that early time till now, man, the last and greatest winner in life’s race, has been taking possession of the earth. With more and more powerful weapons he has fought against the wild beasts in their native haunts; and by clearing away the large forests, cutting up the broad prairies and pastures, and cultivating the land, he has turned them out of their old feeding grounds, till now we must go to the centre of Africa, the wild parts of Asia, or the boundless forests of South America, to visit in their homes the large wild animals of the great army of milk-givers.
* * * * *
Since, therefore, these forms are growing rarer every century, and some of them, such as the Dodo, Epyornis, and Moa among birds, and the northern sea-cow or Rhytina among milk-givers, have already disappeared since the times of history, we must endeavour, before others are gone for ever, to study their structure and their habits. For we are fast learning that it is only by catching at these links in nature’s chain that we can hope to unravel the history of life upon the earth.