But the forms of life in the two higher vertebrate classes
are Nature's most perfect work; and the life of even a single species is
of incalculably greater value to mankind, for what it teaches and would
continue to teach, than all the chiselled marbles and painted canvases
the world contains; though doubtless there are many persons who are
devoted to art, but blind to some things greater than art, who will set
me down as a Philistine for saying so. And, above all others, we should
protect and hold sacred those types, Nature's masterpieces, which are
first singled out for destruction on account of their size, or
splendour, or rarity, and that false detestable glory which is accorded
to their most successful slayers. In ancient times the spirit of life
shone brightest in these; and when others that shared the earth with
them were taken by death they were left, being more worthy of
perpetuation. Like immortal flowers they have drifted down to us on the
ocean of time, and their strangeness and beauty bring to our
imaginations a dream and a picture of that unknown world, immeasurably
far removed, where man was not: and when they perish, something of
gladness goes out from nature, and the sunshine loses something of its
brightness. Nor does their loss affect us and our times only. The
species now being exterminated, not only in South America but everywhere
on the globe, are, so far as we know, untouched by decadence.
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