i8 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



collector. We may safely conclude that senseless 

 persecution and wanton slaughter must be held 

 primarily responsible for the loss of the Great 

 Bustard, aided by alteration in the methods of 

 tillage. Drainage and enclosure of waste lands, 

 and the changed conditions due to increase of 

 population, and possibly the spread of railways 

 and other industries that have broken the seclusion 

 and almost primeval peace of many a favoured 

 haunt, must also be held responsible for the bird's 

 disappearance, as well as indiscriminate shooting 

 and egg-stealing. 



So far as we are at present able to ascertain, the 

 disappearance of species from the world may be 

 more or less directly traced to the agency of man, 

 and primarily of civilised man. We cannot recall 

 to mind a solitary instance in which the exter- 

 mination of a species within historic time has been 

 exclusively due to any extra human agency. 

 Species and individuals, of course, are constantly 

 striving one against the other in the battle of life ; 

 incessantly struggling to maintain a place in the 

 ranks of existing forms — here gaining an advantage, 

 there losing ground, as the conditions of existence 

 may vary to their disadvantage or in their favour. 

 The extermination of species under such conditions 



