INTRODUCTORY. 1 7 



judge by the analogy of some of the British-North-Ameri- 

 can birds that figure in our list, have prevented its being 

 temporarily recorded as a British turtle. I do not, be 

 it understood, take upon myself for one moment the re- 

 sponsibility of criticising the validity of examples pre- 

 viously recorded. I prefer relating what did happen, 

 and suggesting what might have happened but that, 

 fortunately for British zoology, the precious morsel was 

 evidently carried away into the broad Atlantic by wester- 

 ing currents, and thus lost to our fauna. I hope it is 

 unnecessary to add that I fully intended, perhaps after 

 duly enjoying the humour of the situation, to set matters 

 right. This is why I have ignored the turtles ; and if I 

 had only the evidence of my own eyes, my own opinion 

 is that the bird-list might in like manner have been con- 

 siderably curtailed, as I fancy that if the spars and sheets 

 of the Atlantic liners bound for Liverpool could speak, 

 they might tell strange tales of stowaway birds. 1 



Nor have the factors that have united to make our 

 fauna what it is been quite exhausted in the foregoing 

 remarks, for it would be impossible to overestimate the 

 effects of protection. Man has not only exterminated, 



or in some cases kept under, indigenous beasts 



Protection. , , . , , , , . , , , , 



and birds; not only has ne introduced and 



acclimatised foreign species; but he has also, almost en- 

 tirely for sporting purposes, extended his protection to both 

 beasts and birds that would otherwise have disappeared 

 long since from our countryside. Such are the fox, hare, 

 otter, red- and roe-deer, and grouse, which were at any 

 rate among the early inhabitants of these islands. The 

 fallow-deer, as also the various breeds of pheasants, come 

 under another category, for they were introduced, and not 

 indigenous. It has been shown that the preservation of 



1 A turtle of very large dimensions has at various times during the 

 past summer (1897) been sighted and more than once harpooned oft' 

 the Cornish coast. I have reason to believe that it is still at large iu 

 those waters. 



B 



