THE PRESERVATION OF OUR FAUNA 203 



When a possible victim ventured from its shelter it was at 

 once hunted, driven back, or captured. Our forests and 

 woodlands, now reduced to a minimum, must have been 

 similarly crowded with timorous creatures; the open 

 country was free to the larger and more powerful forms. 

 Man has altered all this, man with his axe and hoe has 

 let light into the jungle. What says Stevenson, the 

 roadmaker ? 



" 'Mid vegetable king and priest 

 And stripling, I (the only beast) 

 Was at the beast's work, killing; hewed 

 The stubborn roots across, bestrewed 

 The glebe with the dislustered leaves, 

 And bade the saplings fall in sheaves; 

 Bursting across the tangled math 

 A ruin that I called a path, 

 A Golgotha that, later on, 

 When rains had watered," and sun shone, 

 And seeds enriched the place, should bear 

 And be called garden.'* 



When others, long before Stevenson, hacked their way 

 through the primeval forest, " bathed in vegetable blood," 

 they let in the predatory beasts and increased the struggle. 

 But man, too, is predatory, and from craving for food or 

 desire for sport he helped the lesser folk at the expense 

 of the greater, especially when he realised that these 

 powerful creatures competed with him in blood lust. 

 How well he succeeded in driving them from the face of 

 the earth may be realised by the study of history. Here 

 in Britain the white- tailed eagle and the osprey have gone, 

 the golden eagle survives because it is useful as a pro- 

 tector of other game or rather as an assistant on the deer- 

 forest ; the kite, once a useful and very familiar scavenger 

 in our medieval towns, and the harriers are reduced to 

 a few st Higglers, solely maintained by private protectors; 



