256 DELIBERATE INTRODUCTION OF NEW ANIMALS 



has multiplied at an alarming rate, and having shown a 

 strong and increasing preference for grain, has become a 

 vagabond and outlaw, whose death is sought at a price by 

 agricultural councils, municipal authorities and governments. 

 The Common Starling, introduced to Australia and New 

 Zealand, has fallen into similar evil ways, for the settler, 

 hoping to make an end of his insect pests, little thought that 

 his protege would make a beginning with fruit. 



Has not Nature also mocked us in this country in the 

 case of the introduction of the Little Owl (Athene noctua] 

 (Fig. 48, p. 255)? Brought by Lord Lilford from Holland in 

 the eighties of last century, and set free in Northamptonshire 

 to rid country belfries of sparrows and bats, and fields of mice, 

 and by Mr E. G. B. Meade- Waldo to Kent in 1874 and 

 later, the Little Owl in a few years has spread into all the 

 neighbouring counties and to some far away. It has even 

 reached Scotland, where in 1912 one was shot at East Grange 

 in Fifeshire. And everywhere it has betrayed its trust and, 

 hawking by day, has destroyed Warblers, Finches, and 

 Thrushes, and has been convicted of stealing the young 

 of Pheasants and Partridges from the coverts, and chickens 

 from the poultry yard. 



BALANCE OF NATURE UPSET 



Why should these unlooked for and destructive results 

 so uniformly greet the efforts to introduce, for the sake of 

 their utility, new elements into a fauna? Such misfortunes 

 do not dog the introduction of domestic animals or of animals 

 introduced for purposes of sport. The reason is connected 

 with food supply, and seems in part to be this : When animals 

 are introduced for utility's sake, they are required in large 

 numbers, and are encouraged to breed. It comes about, 

 therefore, that if climate and conditions are suitable the 

 foreigners multiply with rapidity, and the result is either 

 that the food supply relied upon to support them falls short 

 of requirements, or that increasing competition drives the 

 aliens to try a new food which in the end, usually to the 

 dismay of the farmer, they come to prefer. Domestic animals 

 are in as great or greater numbers than the introduced pests, 

 but then careful provision is made by cultivation for their 

 food supply, and their tastes are given no opportunity to 



