4092 The Zoologist — August, 1874. 



extermination of" vermin," as they call eagles and hawks, until the 

 race of game-birds is unnaturally ci'ovvded, and, as a consequence, 

 is sensibly depauperated. Nature, ever wiser than man, makes 

 equal provision for the preservation of all her tribes ; she designs 

 that each shall possess that rood of ground necessary for its main- 

 tenance, and so she entrusts the parents with the necessary duty of 

 driving the young ones away and bidding them shift for themselves. 

 Hence the fact that young birds wander farther south or farther 

 north, as the case may be, than the old ones, and thus also it 

 happens that the rare birds recorded in the ' Zoologist' are in 

 immature plumage. I could gladly have enlarged on this interesting 

 topic ; but my readers will prefer hearing Mr. Gould, who thus 

 continues : — 



"Although in the foregoing remarks I have used the terms migrant and 

 migratory in their ordinary acceptation, it will be as well before quitting the 

 subject of migration to place before my readers what I consider should be 

 the strict meaning of the word ' migrant.' The country a bird resorts to for 

 the propagation of its species should be regarded as its true habitat : thus 

 the swallows and others, although they pass only half the year in the 

 British Islands, are really not migrants in the same sense of the term as 

 that in which we should so regard the fieldfare and redwing, who, although 

 resident with us during the winter, retire to Norway and other northern 

 regions for the purpose of breeding, and who are impelled to visit our 

 country solely to obtain the food necessary for their existence. But whilst 

 regarding the species visiting us from the north during the winter months, 

 such as the woodcock, ducks, fieldfares, redwings, &c., as true migrants only, 

 it must be recollected that the swallow, chiffchaff, cuckoo, &c., species 

 leaving us at the same portion of the year, are migrants so far as the 

 countries they respectively winter in are concerned." — Page 8. 



On the subject of acclimatizing species or transplanting them 

 from one region to another, much difference of opinion prevails, and 

 Mr. Gould has done wisely to give it his attentive consideration : his 

 conclusions are evidently opposed to those in the mind of every 

 adventurer, that we have only to tether an animal to our own door- 

 post, in whatever continent or clime we may be pleased to settle, 

 and it will thrive there. Let those who think so look plainly at fact. 

 Have we utilized the zebra, the most beautiful of all quadrupeds } 

 He would fetch some hundreds of pounds in Britain without diffi- 

 culty, yet after attempting his introduction for two thousand years 

 we give it up in despair. Nature has laws which she refuses to 



