BRITAIN'S BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS. 179 



the continuance of the protection, it is to be hoped that 

 the species will become to some extent re-established. 



Collectors are the worst enemies of birds, seeing that 

 they persecute a rare species because it is rare. And the 

 rarer they make it the more they persecute it, so that 

 the evil increases by leaps and boiinds, and may soon lead 

 to total extermination unless their murderous and at the 

 same time senseless designs are thwarted by those who 

 place a truer value on the wild-life of our native land. 

 It is significant that those who have interfered in this and 

 in many a similar case have been the real scientific students 

 of bird-life, and that they altogether disown the collector, 

 who delights to call himself a scientific worker, while he is 

 really a kleptomaniac. No intelligent use is made of the 

 stolen spoils by the average collector ; no worthy advantage 

 is derived from amassing series of egg-shells — it is the mere 

 lust for collecting, hypocritically disguised. Worse than 

 the collector himself is the ' hireling ruffian ' who is tempted 

 by the high price fetched by rare eggs and skins ; but the 

 responsibility for his baneftil activities rests with those 

 who have given these rarities a market value. That bird- 

 nesting is a fascinating and interesting occupation there is 

 no doubt ; that collecting in an intelligent way, and on a 

 reasonable scale, may form a part of it not altogether to 

 be condemned we concede ; that it is an essential or even 

 a very useful part we cannot admit ; that it should form the 

 zchole, as it so often does, must be condemned as unworthy 

 of any intelligent person. And it is collectors who are 

 no more than collectors that are the worst offenders. The 

 man who will rob a rare bird's nest cannot possess the 

 naturalist's spirit, and cannot either learn or teach fi-om 

 his results ; he would do as much good to himself and to 

 other people if he kept to the postage-stamps or tram- 

 way tickets of his boyhood. 



