BIRD LIFE 23J 



1898 was the entire, and so far as can yet be seen, 

 permanent extinction in ill-fated St Vincent, in little 

 more than an hour and a half, of a Humming-bird, 

 which the day before had been one of the commonest 

 birds in the island. 



Among domesticated birds artificial varieties are 

 without much difficulty produced. A Pigeon with a 

 perfectly webbed foot, evolved at Cambridge by only 

 three years' selected crossings, was in January last 

 exhibited as a curiosity at the meeting of the Ornitho- 

 logical Club. 



But it would be difficult perhaps ' impossible ' would 

 not be too strong a word to use to point to a single 

 instance in which a wild species has structurally changed 

 in the slightest particular of any importance within the 

 knowledge of man. The Eider Duck, which now on 

 the Fame Islands sits as closely as an Aylesbury in a 

 farmyard, and the Drake which rides at anchor watch- 

 ing to join her in the open the moment she leaves her 

 nest, are, so far as we know, feather for feather the same 

 as those which twelve hundred years ago were blessed 

 and tamed by St. Cuthbert 



In the vegetable world as if by way of compensa- 

 tion for disabilities in other directions forms seem to 

 be more easily changed. A white geranium found in 

 South Africa is said to have adapted itself to the thirsty 

 life of the veldt by developing a bulb like an onion. 



But fascinating as such speculations are, it is pleasant 

 to step from the mists and find oneself in the sunshine 

 with the birds as they now exist On the threshold we 



