Page 58 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

36 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
SKELETON OF A RHYTINA, OR ARCTIC SEA-COW In the United States National Museum
Originally this species inhabited "northern Mongolia" (China), but in a wild state it became extinct before its zoological standing became knowntothescientificworld. Thespecieswascalledtotheattentionof zoologists by a Roman Catholic missionary, called Father David, and when finally described it was named in his honor.
At the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion, in 1900, there were about 200 specimens living in the imperial park of China, a short distance south of Pekin; but during the rebellion, all of them were killed and eaten, thus totally exterminating the species from Asia.
Fortunately, previous to that calamity (in 1894), the Duke of Bed- ford had by considerable effort and expenditure procured and established in his matchless park surrounding Woburn Abbey, England, a herd of eighteen specim.ens of this rarest of all deer. That nucleus has thriven andincreased,untilin1910itcontainedthirty-fourhead. Owingtothe fact that all the living female specimens of this remarkable species are concentrated in one spot, and perfectly liable to be wiped out in one year byriot,warordisease,thereissomecauseforanxiety. Thewriterhas gone so far as to suggest the desirability of starting a new herd of David's deer, at some point far distant from England, as an insurance measure against the possibility of calamity at Woburn. Excepting two or three specimens in European zoological gardens that have been favored by the Duke of Bedford, there are no living specimens outside of Woburn Park.
The Rhytina, (Rhytina gigas).—The most northerly Sirenian that (so far as we know) ever inhabited the earth, lived on the Commander Islands m the northern end of Behring Sea, and was exterminated by man,
foritsoilanditsflesh,about1768. Itwasfirstmadeknowntotheworld by Stcller, in 1741, and must have become extinct near the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The rhytina belonged to the same mammalian Order as the manatee of Florida and South America, and the dugong of Australia. The largest manatee that Florida has produced, so far as we know, was thirteen feet long. The rhytina attained a length of between thirty and thirty-five feet,andaweightof6,000poundsorover. Thefleshofthisanimal,like^ that of the manatee and dugong, must have been edible, and surely was prized by the hungry sailors and natives of its time.
It is not strange