280



Correspondence.



that his personal research—which is not seldom another name for a desire to

accumulate an infinite number of eggs or skins—is interfered with by a badly

regulated and senseless method of protection. There is a family likeness in his

complaints, they usually include a plea for “the poor wild-fowler,’’ or the

“ industrious birdcatcher,” but the real burden of his complaint is that it is

HIS aviary that cannot be filled without paying ‘ exorbitant prices,’ or that HIS

cabinet of skins and eggs requires more specimens. Unfortunately the collector

has a bad reputation, and not a few deserve that reputation only too well.


But, curiously enough, there is one attribute which the advocates of

protection and the collectors possess in common, and they are never tired of

proclaiming in glowing language the intensity of their “ Love of Science.”


Love of a cause is commonly gauged by the extent of sacrifice of personal

aims that the lover is willing to make for the sake of the cause, and yet we

search the writings of these protagonists in vain for any indication of the

slightest willingness to subordinate their personal interests.


The Protection of Wild Birds in a thickly populated and highly developed

country such as ours is admittedly an extremely difficult problem, and must

depend largely upon the good will of the population. The economic value and

importance of agricultural and sporting interests is sufficient guarantee that,

even assuming the realization of the aspirations of the fanatical bird protectionist

were desirable, they are utterly and hopelessly beyond his powers to attain.


The unchecked increase of the Peregrine and the Golden Eagle is as in¬

compatible with the preservation of a grouse moor, as is the indefinite increase

of the Bullfinch and the Hawfinch with the interests of the market gardener.


The only effect of advocating wholesale and unsystematic protection is to

alienate the sympathy of a large body of public opinion: it is the very length of

the list of protected birds (many of them in no want of protection) in the

schedules of some Counties, that renders the Wild Birds Protection Act in some

districts almost a dead letter, owing to the hopeless impossibility of enforcing

its regulations. If the protectionist would confine his efforts to the protection of

all species in such numbers as not to conflict with interests that must be con¬

sidered, and at least in sufficient numbers as to adequately guarantee their

continued existence on breeding species, he would find himself supported by

every lover of birds in Great Britain, and at the same time do away with a

considerable amount of the opposition he now encounters.


That there is still room for every British species to exist and continue to

exist, there can be no room for doubt; and this is true of even the most des¬

tructive and predatory birds. But it is just here that the crux of the question

arises, and the crux of the question is the collector. There are collectors, and

collectors, but for the type of collector with which we are now concerned, no

genuine lover of birds has anything but the bitterest condemnation.


To this type of collector the value of a British taken egg is exactly the

measure of the rarity of the bird that laid it, and it is largely to these gentle-



