CHAPTER X 



BIRD POPULATION 



BRITISH ornithologists have good reason to be 

 depressed, and to wish that they had lived in the 

 days of their grandfathers. One bird after another 

 passes away exterminated by sportsmen, collectors, 

 drainage, or increase of population. The Bittern 

 when he comes to us is shot before he can nest ; the 

 Great Bustard only occasionally strays here ; the 

 Golden Eagle is only to be seen in remote moun- 

 tainous parts of our islands, and the Bearded Tit 

 lingers on in but two or three counties. And the 

 evil seems likely to increase. Nothing, I believe, but 

 the establishment of protected districts, on a larger 

 scale than has hitherto been accomplished by private 

 persons, can check it. Parliament may perhaps some 

 day grant charters to societies of naturalists allowing 

 them to maintain such oases, and punish as a thief 

 any one who steals eggs or birds from the sacred 

 precincts. 



The question of diminution of species is, however, 

 quite different from the question of diminution of 



