Changes and Extinctions

We went to a lecture at the SA Museum last night, I said to Pliny. You would have enjoyed it. It was about the extinction of birds in the Mount Lofty Ranges.

I know, said Pliny. I was there.

Were you ? I said, surprised. We didn't see you. Did you sit at the back?

No, said Pliny, but I sat several rows behind you.

Why didn't you come up and sit with us? I asked.

Because I had been given a glass of wine, said Pliny, and I didn't wish to flaunt it.

What! You were given a glass of wine! I thought this year it was reserved for special guests.

It is, said Pliny. I became an honorary special guest after I introduced myself. Naturally they had all heard of me. I was the first writer to have written of the extinction of a species. That was the plant Silphium, which became extinct during my life time. Of course, I had also had something to say on the disappearance of certain birds.

Something really useful, I suppose, I said nastily.

They would not have found it useful, admitted Pliny, had they remembered what it was. It was regarding the birds known to us as Sangualis and Immusulus, which, it was asserted, had not been seen in Rome for quite some time. I wrote that I thought it more likely that, since a general lack of interest in all knowledge had prevailed of late, no notice had been taken of them.

Do you think that is why the Dusky Woodswallow, the Painted Button-quail and the Restless Flycatcher are no longer seen in great numbers in the Mount Lofty Ranges ? I asked.

It may not be, said Pliny.

Well, you have changed your tune, I said.

These are modern times, he replied.