316 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



in the world of fashion, as surely producing the de- 

 struction of a race, as the colonization of the white man 

 in Australia and New Zealand is effecting the extinction 

 of the native tribes. The rage for grebe-skin muffs 

 and boas has all but exterminated (except on the most 

 strictly preserved waters), the great crested species 

 (Podiceps cristatus) on the broads of Norfolk, and some 

 Indian birds, famed for the beauty of their feathers, are 

 said to have suffered in the same degree. Now, again, 

 the fiat has gone forth against the beautiful kingfishers,* 

 both here and elsewhere, and if fickle fashion does not 

 quickly change, or the ladies of England lend a merciful 

 ear to the remonstrances of naturalists, this once 

 common and most beautiful of our British birds will 

 become the greatest rarity. It is somewhat singular 

 how comparatively few individuals, even amongst pro- 

 fessed naturalists, have had the chance of personally 

 examining the nest of the kingfisher ; it was, therefore, 

 with no little pleasure that I found myself, in the spring 



* Mr. F. Buckland writes in the " Field" (March 26th, 1864, 

 p. 216), " On Saturday last I met a man in a punt on the Thames, 

 whose special mission on that day was to destroy kingfishers. He 

 had one (a beauty), and had two shots at others. They were going, 

 he told me, to London to be made into ornaments for ladies' hats. 

 It seems a very great pity to destroy these little birds, who are 

 just now building their nests; but ladies fashions rule the day. 

 They have already, by making them fashionable, nearly utterly 

 destroyed the black monkey on the west coast of Africa. The skins 

 of the Himalayan pheasants are getting very dear. Sea otters 

 have retired to the Arctic circle, and now the kingfisher's turn has 

 come ; and if this continues, the kingfisher will become shortly a 

 rare British bird. Ladies, if you wish to do service to your 

 husbands and brothers, make the white swan of the Thames fashion- 

 able ; for they are useless and spawn-eating brutes. If I knew who 

 the individual was who sets the fashions, I would certainly do my 

 best to cause this really modern demi-god to make swans' plumes 

 fashionable. It would be a bad job for the swans, possibly, and a 

 a piece of good luck for the fish." 



