

IV. 4 



PROTECTION OF ANIMALS THROUGH 

 POPULAR FAVOUR AND SUPERSTITION 



MAN has so much to answer for as a destroyer and 

 exterminator of his co-dwellers on the earth that there is 

 something pleasing in the thought that on occasion his 

 goodwill has been extended to animals, apart from the thought, 

 of future sport or of gains to come. This goodwill has 

 affected a favoured few of our native animals, and as a 

 rule has been determined by some special interest attaching 

 to the creatures it shields, in view of which minor delin- 

 quencies on their part have come to be overlooked. 



The Otter is a serious menace to freshwater fisheries, 

 yet it has probably been saved from extermination because 

 of a tender thought in the heart of many a proprietor of a 

 trout stream for this "lord of the stream" who surveys "all 

 the finny shoals his own," whose destructiveness is com- 

 pensated for by the interest and beauty it adds to many an 

 angler's haunt. But perhaps the thought of a day with the 

 otter hounds has also had its influence. The Badger, too, 

 however much it may have been persecuted in former times, 

 has now gained a place in popular favour because of its 

 interest and rarity, and there is little likelihood that the 

 extermination which once threatened it, will be carried into 

 effect. May it be taken as a gratifying sign of the growing 

 regard for our wild animals, that a colony of -Badgers has 

 inhabited for many years, without disturbance, a site on 

 Corstorphine Hill almost within the boundaries of the city 

 of Edinburgh ? But if its size and clumsiness add interest 

 to the Badger, for it is one of the largest of our surviving 

 wild animals, diminutiveness and grace make equal claims 

 upon the affection of man, and with these the Dormouse, a 

 native of southern England, has made an appeal which has 

 not been unanswered. 



It is to the Birds, however, that the goodwill of man has 

 most frequently turned. Where their song has charmed his 



