ACCLIMATISATION AND EXTERMINATION 59 



tion. Printers to save themselves trouble decry the use 

 of capitals, but within limits it is very desirable. 



Yrs. very truly, 



ALFRED NEWTON. 



Although the re-introduction of the Capercaillie into 

 Scotland had been so successful, Newton never quite 

 approved of these experiments, which he regarded rather 

 as attempts at acclimatisation, and of that he wrote : 



Everything relating to what is called Acclimatisation 

 is hateful to me, but I do think it is just possible that if 

 Strix umlensis were introduced into this country, it 

 might be of some use to check the Rat plague, and as 

 Rats themselves are interlopers it might be fair to use 

 aliens against them. 



In the light of the Little Owl plague at the present 

 time, it is fortunate that that experiment also failed. 



All questions of the extinction of animals concerned 

 him very closely (vide the article " Extermination " in 

 the " Dictionary of Birds "), and in an address delivered 

 to the British Association at Glasgow in 1876, he described 

 in his own peculiar way the consequences of unconsidered 

 acclimatisation. 



What if a future " Challenger " shall report of some 

 island, now known to possess a rich and varied animal 

 population, that its present fauna has disappeared ? 

 That its only Mammals were feral Pigs, Goats, Rats and 

 Rabbits with an infusion of Ferrets, introduced by a 

 zealous " acclimatiser " to check the super-abundance 

 of the rodents last named, but contenting themselves 

 with the colonists' chickens ? That Sparrows and 

 Starlings, brought from Europe, were its only Land- 

 birds, that the former had propagated to such an extent 

 that the cultivation of cereals had ceased to pay the 

 prohibition of bird-keeping boys by the local school 

 board contributing to the same effect and that the latter 



