INTRODUCTION 31 



similar conditions. But two birds are peculiar to 

 them : one of these, the Red Grouse, is carefully 

 preserved from extinction for the sport it yields ; 

 and the other, the St. Kilda Wren, had long 

 maintained its place even on a few isolated rocks, 

 until in an evil day its specific difference was 

 detected, and now the greed of collectors threatens 

 soon to extirpate it as effectually as other methods 

 did the Dodo and the Great Auk. In Britain, then, 

 we had no peculiar or flightless birds, no species 

 so tame from its unfamiliarity with man, for 

 civilisation to extirpate, although we had certain 

 others — individuals of widely dispersed continental 

 species — that bred in our islands, many of which 

 have vanished or are gradually going, more perhaps 

 than the average reader is likely to suspect. We 

 cannot too strongly assert, as having a vital bear- 

 ing upon the whole question of extermination, that 

 the supply of birds, even in such a favourable 

 locality as the British area, situated as it is so 

 closely to continental land, is inexhaustible. If 

 we kill off our native contingent, especially of 

 resident or breeding species, there is no reason 

 whatever to console ourselves with the belief that 

 other individuals will arrive to replace them. If 

 such were really the case, the Great Bustard, 



