INTEODUCTORY. 17 



judge by the analogy of some of the British-North- Ameri- 

 can birds that figure in our list, have prevented its being 

 temporarily recorded as a British turtle. I do not, be 

 it understood, take upon myself for one moment the re- 

 sponsibility of criticising the validity of examples pre- 

 viously recorded. I prefer relating what did happen, 

 and suggesting what might have happened but that, 

 fortunately for British zoology, the precious morsel was 

 evidently carried away into the broad Atlantic by wester- 

 ing currents, and thus lost to our fauna. I hope it is 

 unnecessary to add that I fully intended, perhaps after 

 duly enjoying the humour of the situation, to set matters 

 right. This is why I have ignored the turtles ; and if I 

 had only the evidence of my own eyes, my own opinion 

 is that the bird-list might in like manner have been con- 

 siderably curtailed, as I fancy that if the spars and sheets 

 of the Atlantic liners bound for Liverpool could speak, 

 they might tell strange tales of stowaway birds.^ 



Nor have the factors that have united to make our 

 fauna what it is been quite exhausted in the foregoing 

 remarks, for it w^ould be impossible to overestimate the 

 effects of protection. Man has not only exterminated, 

 or in some cases kept under, indigenous beasts 

 and birds; not only has he introduced and 

 acclimatised foreign species; but he has also, almost en- 

 tirely for sporting purposes, extended his protection to both 

 beasts and birds that would otherwise have disappeared 

 long since from our countryside. Such are the fox, hare, 

 otter, red- and roe-deer, and grouse, which were at any 

 rate among the early inhabitants of these islands. The 

 fallow-deer, as also the various breeds of pheasants, come 

 under another category, for they were introduced, and not 

 indigenous. It has been shown that the preservation of 



1 A turtle of very large dimensions has at various times during the 

 past summer (1897) been sighted — and more than once harpooned — oft" 

 tlie Cornish coast. I have reason to believe that it is still at large in 

 those waters. 



B 



