EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 185 



will make more sharks out of something else — 

 possibly out of the very salmon on which he pro- 

 poses to regale his hungry disciples. To go into 

 details is not the present writer's purpose; and 

 to finish with this part of the subject, it is suffi- 

 cient to add that in the very wide and varied field 

 occupied by the sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual 

 manner possible to a species having no special and 

 highly perfected feeding instincts, there is room 

 for the introduction of scores of competitors, 

 every one of which should be better adapted than 

 the sparrow to find a subsistence at that point or 

 that particular part of the field where the two 

 w^ould come into rivalry; and every species in- 

 troduced should also possess some quality which 

 would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, 

 a valuable addition to our bird life. This would 

 be no war of violence, and no contravention of 

 Nature^s ordinances, but, on the contrary, a re- 

 turn to her safe, healthy, and far-reaching 

 methods. 



There is one objection some may make to the 

 scheme suggested here which must be noticed. It 

 may be said that even if exotic species able to 

 thrive in our country were introduced there 



