246 BIRDS AND MAN 



That a law on the lines suggested will be made 

 sooner or later is my belief : that it may come soon 

 is my hope and prayer, lest we have to say of the 

 Dartford warbler, and of twenty other species named 

 in this chapter, as we have had to say of so many 

 others that have gone 



The beautiful is vanished, and returns not. 



Note. — The foregoing chapter, albeit written so many years 

 ago, is still "up-to-date" — still represents without a shadow of 

 a shade of difference the state of the case. The extermination 

 of our rare birds and " occasional visitors " still goes merrily 

 on in defiance of the law, and the worst offender's are still received 

 with open arms by the British Ornithologists' Union. Indeed, 

 that Society, from the point of view of many of its members 

 would have no raison cT kre if membership were denied to the 

 private collector of rare " British killed " birds and their eggs 

 and to the " scientific " ornithologist whose mission is to add 

 several new species annually to the British list. They still 

 dine together and exhibit their specimens to one another. On 

 the last occasion of my attending one of these meetings a member 

 exhibited a small bird " in the flesh " — a bird from some far 

 country which had been shot somewhere on the east coast and 

 was so knocked to pieces by the shot that the ornithologists 

 had great difficulty in identifying it. Although a collector 

 himself he was anxious to dispose of the specimen, but none of 

 his brother collectors would give him a five-pound note for it 

 owing to its condition. It was handed round and examined 

 and discussed by all the authorities present. I stood apart, 

 looking at a group of ornithologists bending over the shattered 



