INTRODUCTORY. 15 



cases within almost the old limits, rather than to start 

 new townships in waste parts of the country. If a new 

 town does now and again spring up, it is certain to be 

 a watering-place, the mushroom rise of which is not in- 

 frequently followed by sudden decay. As an instance of 

 this, I may cite Southbourne-on-Sea, a new speculation 

 which was, we were told a very few years ago, to rival 

 Bournemouth and eclipse Boscombe ; but the venture has 

 to all appearance come to nothing, and the whimbrel and 

 dotterel and redshank are left in possession of the sand- 

 flats below Christchurch, laying their eggs peacefully on 

 the sands and shingle which should, in the fertile imagina- 

 tion of investors, have been thronged ere now with chil- 

 dren and nursemaids. Thus rapidly does Nature reclaim 

 her own. Secondly, it is notorious that a large number of 

 beasts and birds, so far from shunning his presence, follow 

 man into new districts. 



But man not only exterminates, both directly and in- 

 directly; he also acclimatises and protects. It is not so 

 easy as might be expected, when sketching the fauna of a 

 highly civilised country like ours, to draw the 



. . ^. ' ' line strictly between the indigenous and the 

 tisation. , "^ ° , . 



imported. In the case of Australia, the dis- 

 tinction was far simpler, the placental dingo presenting 

 the only difficulty. As for the horse, cattle, sheep, and 

 dog, the camels, oxen, buffaloes, poultry, and the like, all 

 these had obviously no place among the rightful owners of 

 that remarkable island. With us, however, it is different. 

 The palpably domesticated animals are easily reckoned 

 with. The horse, ass, goat, sheep, dog, cat, hog, poultry, 

 guinea-pig, and foreign cage-birds — these are ignored in 

 the following pages, as also the semi-domesticated remnant 

 of our wild oxen. But what shall be said of our fallow- 

 deer, pheasants, capercailzie, red-legged partridge, edible 

 frog, and carp ? or who would have the courage to omit 

 all notice of these from an account, however slight, of our 

 natural history ? This tinkering of an impoverished fauna 



