CHAPTER VII 



INFLUENCES OF CULTIVATION 

 AND CIVILIZATION 



No more the heath fowl there her nestling brood 

 Fosters ; no more the dreary plover plains ; 

 And when, from frozen regions of the pole, 

 The wintry bittern to his wonted haunt, 

 On weary wing returns, he finds the marsh 

 Into a joyless stubble-ridge transformed, 

 And mounts again to seek some watery wild. 



GRAHAM'S British Georgics. 



BETWEEN the ways of Man and the rule of wild Nature 

 there is inevitable strife. Just as the wastes of Nature are 

 invaded by the plough, just so the original plants and animals 

 of a district are disturbed or dispersed ; and as the economic 

 necessity becomes more insistent and cultivation more intense, 

 so much the deeper becomes the disturbance and the more 

 certain the doom of the early associations. If the "lowing 

 herd " is to wind "slowly o'er the lea," we may listen no more 

 for the bleat of the Snipe and the call of the Curlew; if waving 

 cornfields are to fill our valleys and climb our hill-sides, we 

 shall no more see the Great Bustard and his companions 

 of the open plains. The civilization of cities and villages, of 

 mills and factories, of tramways, motor cars and railways has 

 banished peace from the valleys, and the places where man 

 has been most successful are those which most certainly shall 

 know the presence of the wild no more. Yet, in spite of all 

 the disruption, animal life has more than held its own, for cul- 

 tivation and increase in numbers go hand in hand. Although 

 many species have disappeared, the variety and the volume 

 of life are greater. 



The influence of man on animal life is most intimately 

 bound up with the progress of civilization, and while some 

 results of this progress have been discussed in other chapters, 



