IN THE SHETLANDS 147 
I believe that these poor stuffed groupings of bird 
family life, for each of which a whole live family has 
to be killed, and which have been so much praised, are 
really nothing but an evil, or, at least, that there is no 
good in them at all comparable to the evil. All 
naturalists “of the right breed” who can see them 
alive, and not dead, will. Those who cannot will 
take little consolation in so poor a substitute, and will 
rather spend their time in seeing what they can than 
in filling their eyes with mere deadness, It is not 
for such that these odious slaughters, these revolt- 
ing barbarities are committed, but for sauntering 
mechanics, booby children, “Oh my!’-ing servant 
maids, and a few panel-painting young ladies. These 
are the beneficiaries ; but the real moving motive of it 
all—the causa causans—is the inextinguishable fire of 
slaughter that burns for ever in the human breast. It 
burns for ever, but, as time works his changes, some 
new imagined motive must be found for the old 
passion and the old deed; so over them both science 
now flings her ample, hypocritical cloak. ‘‘ For the sake 
of science”—that is the formula of the professor who 
sends out the naturalist to slay, and of the naturalist 
who goes and slays. With that charm on their lips 
both quench the thirst of their hearts, and feel no 
evil in the draught. To the strong band of slayers 
they add their strength, nay, supply it, if that were 
needed, with an added incentive, preaching a crusade 
of destruction to its very enthusiasts who, though they 
love nothing better, yet may nod sometimes, like the 
