In Wildest Africa -* 



neglect of legacies left to us by Nature from the days of 

 its primeval beauty. 



Numerous other examples of the rapid disappearance 

 of certain species in our Fatherland might be quoted here. 

 Unfortunately we have, on the whole, very little right to 

 reproach the people of Southern Europe on the subject 

 of their custom of carrying on a systematic massacre 

 ol birds ; for we ourselves are always trapping thrushes 

 and larks, and there is the shooting of the woodcock in 



O 



spring. There can be no doubt that, if we would give 

 up this spring shooting of the woodcock, this bird, which 

 has so won the heart of the German sportsman, would 

 breed abundantly in our forests. On sporting estates in 

 the wooded hills in Baden I have had occasion to observe 

 this bird nesting; and it is to be regretted that German 

 sportsmen, who in other matters obey the customs ot the 

 chase: with such scrupulous conscientiousness, do not spare 

 this bird in the spring-time, although they are thus 

 extirpating from their hunting grounds a bird that breeds 

 in the woodlands of our country. The North American 

 woodcock is in process of extinction, tor it also is not 

 spared by sportsmen in its breeding grounds, and it is 

 just as little in safety from them in its winter quarters. 

 It is thus one of the disappearing birds of North America, 

 whilst our European woodcock is not so much exposed 

 to harm Irom systematic: pursuit cither in its partly in- 

 accessible northern breeding grounds or in its winter 

 abode. But it is indeed difficult to abolish old, deep- 

 rooted practices that are no longer abreast ot the times. 

 "Che vuolc, signore ? il piacere della caccia ! ' was 



190 



