A RETROSPECT 487 



multitudes of newcomers on the few loaves and fishes of 

 the aboriginal creatures and yet leaving over more than a 

 few crumbs for the old races, and this miracle has been 

 accomplished through the marvellous art of agriculture 

 which has created fresh food supplies as the domestic 

 animals increased in number and required them. 



Although domestic animals still take the lead amongst 

 introduced creatures, other deliberate importations have to 

 be reckoned with in the modern make-up of the fauna. 

 The Squirrel and the Rabbit both play important parts in 

 the economy of vegetation, the interference of the latter, 

 as I shall have occasion to point out later, being particularly 

 effective and widespread. Yet we should be sorry to lose 

 these sprightly guests from our woods and dells, and bleak 

 sand-dunes, just as we should miss the presence of the 

 graceful Fallow Deer or of the brilliant Pheasant now that 

 these have made their homes in wood and covert. 



On the other hand we would gladly dispense with the 

 presence of most of the chance introductions which have 

 followed in the trail of commerce. They have added 

 enormously in variety as well as in numbers to the fauna of 

 Scotland, but, as I have already pointed out, their methods 

 of secret insinuation into new countries ensure that a large 

 proportion of these skulkers and stowaways shall prove 

 pests and nuisances. How many anxious housewives, farmers, 

 gardeners, and fruit-growers must bemoan the generous 

 bounty of a commerce which has freely given them the Cock- 

 roach, or "Black Beetle" of the kitchen, the loathsome 

 Bed Bug, the Black Rat 'and his cousin the Brown, the 

 American Blight of apple trees, the Phylloxera of the vine, 

 and scores of other minute but destructive enemies of 

 growing crops, of manufactured goods and indeed, it would 

 seem, of anything man particularly wishes to conserve. 

 Other influences have favoured multiplication and the forma- 

 tion of new resorts for colonization ; we think of the 

 inhabitants of houses, of coal-pits, and of water-pipes. But 

 the introduction, fortuitous or deliberate, of new animals, 

 the protection of certain members of the old stock, the 

 multiplication of vegetable feeders and through them of 

 flesh eaters by the arts of land reclamation and cultivation 

 these are the chief methods by which man has encouraged 



