344 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



and as food they cannot compare in utility with 

 beasts and fish, though they ought to be more 

 used than they are, and indeed were so, not so many 

 centuries back, even in this country, where a silly 

 superstition against eating any birds other than 

 ordinary game and poultry is springing up. As to 

 admitting they have any " rights " to share our 

 buildings and produce, I am a humanist, not a 

 humanitarian ; if birds get in our way, they must 

 go, as the large beasts have gone, in my opinion 

 though I never met anybody more keenly interested 

 in birds than I am myself, I only respect humanity. 



At the same time, it may be freely admitted that 

 man has in the past, and is still, far too hard on 

 many species, and has even exterminated some 

 quite gratuitously ; though, as I remarked in a 

 recent book of mine, " Wild Animals of Yesterday 

 and To-day," it is fortunate that none of those 

 exterminated are of very great account either 

 aesthetically or scientifically. The Dodo is the only 

 such one which has become popularly known, and 

 only this and the tallest of the New Zealand Moas 

 would attract attention in a live or dead zoological 

 collection, as anybody may see if they can get a 

 look through Lord Rothschild's monograph on 

 Extinct Birds. 



It must be remembered that most of the birds man 

 has extinguished inhabited islands, and that in early 

 days people had no exact ideas as to the distribution 

 of animals, and so did not know the extent of the 

 harm that was being done ; even in the last century 



