178 THE RAVEN 



Yellowstone Park. It has been secured by the 

 British Legislature, thanks chiefly to the exertions 

 of Mr Edward N. Buxton, in a part of Somaliland 

 and elsewhere in Africa ; and a similar preserve, on 

 a small scale, which might well be extended to the 

 New Forest, has been set apart by the Crown, in 

 Wolmer Forest in Hampshire. No tribute could 

 be more appropriate to the memory of Gilbert 

 White, none would have given him more pleasure, 

 than the consecration in perpetuity of a region 

 through which he so often wandered, to the wild 

 animals and birds which he so keenly loved. 



But why should not every large estate if its 

 owner be resident upon it, as is still happily the 

 case in most parts of England, and if he have any 

 love for real wild life, become, in itself, a sort of 

 sanctuary? There is a balance in nature which 

 man never transgresses but at his cost. Witness 

 it, the wholesale destruction of owls and hawks, and 

 the portentous increase of rats and mice. There is 

 a principle of "live and let live," which enlightened 

 self-interest no less than the public good, sentiment 

 no less than reason, demand. There may be as 

 much game on an estate as any true and moderate 

 sportsman can desire ; but is there not also room in 

 it for the wild swoop of the sparrow-hawk, for the 



