354 THE BIRD WATCHER 
possible. Do I, th@, defend the feeding of snakes 
with their ordinary living prey, in captivity? Yes, I 
do, so long as the conditions of nature are properly 
preserved. I would make that the test. If it is not 
permissible to study the living habits of the living 
animal, to stand as a spectator and see how nature 
works, then there is no such thing as natural history, 
and no place for a naturalist. What naturalist is 
there who would not esteem himself favoured of 
heaven, were he to see an anaconda seize and strangle 
its prey, in the forests of South America, or a cobra 
secure his, amidst the ruins of some jungle temple in 
India? Now, when the same naturalist keeps either 
these or any other snakes in captivity, what is the 
object with which he does, and which alone can justify 
his doing, so? There is—there can be—but one, which 
is, of course, to study its natural habits—for all others 
are puerile and contemptible. Is he, then, to shrink, 
like one who cannot read a tragedy, however great, 
from that very nature which for years, perhaps, as a 
part of his daily life, he has wooed and sought after ? 
What, then, justifies him in doing that? Why should 
he look on whilst a gull, slowly and painfully, does a 
poor young kittiwake to death? Yet, had I shot that 
gull, to save that kittiwake, 1 should have done, in my 
opinion, an execrable act. I should not have stopped 
the ways of nature, in this respect, nor could they be 
stopped, except by a worse slaughter than the one 
which we would prohibit. I should have officiously 
saved the life of one kittiwake, and taken a gull’s in 
