188 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



late to save the large copper ? Yet these and many other 

 creatures have passed but a few years, comparatively 

 speaking, before our time, and others are passing now. 

 We, who look at the question with what we may term 

 scientific sympathy, mourn the loss. It is because we know 

 that within recent years species after species has vanished, 

 and that we know that man's rapacity is in many cases 

 responsible, that we are so anxious to check his evil 

 influences whilst yet there is time. 



There are two methods of stopping or at any rate 

 retarding destruction legislation and personal influence; 

 each has its place, and as a rule one without the other fails. 

 Protective laws cannot be passed without the strong use 

 of the economic and humanitarian arguments, and the 

 last has often failed to gain a hearing. Laws, too, are 

 useless unless the sympathy of legislators, and of the public 

 servants whose duty it is to enforce them, is strong and 

 constant. Our House of Commons is filled by men whose 

 tenure of office depends too much upon topical political 

 issues for it to spend much time upon questions that are 

 only appreciated by the minority of voters. Thus, if we 

 get a good sympathetic naturalist in the House, and he 

 advocates some useful protective measure, the chances 

 are against his success ; his Bill is crowded out by matters 

 which appear more imminent but yet may have transitory 

 importance, matters which appeal to the immediate 

 interests, usv ally pecuniary, of the majority. The struggle 

 for the Plumage Bill is a recent case in point. It was 

 through the indifference of the majority of members who 

 nominally supported the Bill, men of all shades of party, 

 that for so long it was impossible to combat the small but 

 powerful interests of the plumage trade. Time alone will 

 show whether in these days of economic struggle there is 

 sufficient true sympathy with the intentions of the Bill 

 to secure its legal enforcement. 



