EMMET-HUNTER— EXTERMINA TION 2 1 5 



EMMET-HUNTER, a common local name of the Wryneck. 



ERN or ERNE,^Scandin. pm, the Sea-EAGLE ; but hardly used ^'^Voia^-i 

 noAv except in poetry or as the name of a pleasure-yacht. " 1 CiU^^-* 



ERODY (corrupted from Herodias, a Heron) Latham's name 

 {Gen. Hist. B. ix. p. 139) for Dromas ardeola (Crab-Plover). 



EROLIA, a genus proposed by Vieillot (Ncywv. Anab. p. 55), 

 and the name Englished by Stephens in 1819 (Shaw's Zoology, xi. 

 p. 497), but believed to be founded on a specimen of Tringa suharguata 

 (Sandpiper) which had lost its hind toes. 



ERYTHRISM, the abnormal replacement of other colours, 

 generally green or yellow, by red (see Colour and Heterochrosis). 



ESTRIDGER, an old word signifying a Falconer. 



EXTERMINATION, literally a driving out of bounds or ban- 

 ishment, is a process which, intentionally or not, has been and still 

 is being carried on in regard to many more species of Birds than 

 most people— not excepting professed ornithologists— seem to 

 recognize, and one that has frequently led to the Extinction,^ or 

 dying out, of the species affected. The inhabitants of islands are 

 especially subject to this fate. In them each species has long been 

 brought into harmony with its circumstances, and relations with its 

 fellow-creatures have so far become mutually adjusted that in the 

 long run the balance between them is preserved, and the stock of 

 each remains the same one year with another. But the appearance 

 on the scene of man, and especially of civilized man, upsets the equili- 

 brium. Even if he do not immediately begin to bring the virgin 

 soil under cultivation by felling the primaeval forest or burning the 

 brushwood, he almost always introduces certain animals which 

 make war on the aboriginal population — directly in the case of 

 Cats and Rats, indirectly in that of Goats and Rabbits, or both 

 ways in that of Hogs. Against such enemies, whether forcibly 

 attacking them or insidiously robbing them of food, the most part 

 of the indigenous species are unprepared and absolutely helpless. In 

 the majority of instances each of the islands so colonized has its own 

 peculiar Fauna, largely consisting, that is, of species not found 

 elsewhere, and if the island be small it is soon overrun by the 

 newcomers, and its ancient inhabitants with difficulty preserve their 

 existence, or wholly succumb. 



The best known if not the most remarkable case of this kind is 

 that of the DoDO, Didus ineptus, which, on the rediscovery of Cerne, 



^ In some instances the still stronger word, Extirpation, or rooting out, 

 might be appropriately used ; but this would be most applicable in those where 

 destruction of the species is purposely intended, and attempts of that kind have 

 rarely proved to be successful, unless carried on for a long period of time, or by 

 poison. 



