Correspondence.



317



Lord William Percy’s remarks and his condemnation of the wholesale accumu¬

lation of rare eggs. I collected both nests and eggs with a definite object ; and,

no sooner was that object attained and my first book on Oology published than I

ceased to add to my collection. Though nearly all my eggs were taken by

myself in Kent, Norfolk, and Essex, I had a few given to me by friends ; and

others (which for all I cared may have been either British or foreign) I purchased,

to represent the species in my series.


I always believed that I had some perception of humour, but for the life

of me I fail to see anything comical in my suggestion that inbreeding weakens

stock and, if persisted in, may tend to extinction of species : it certainly would

be no laughing matter for the offspring produced, though one or two of my

readers seem to have discovered a great deal of humour in it, I believe it to be

an admitted fact that many bird families, unless forcibly broken up, keep within

call of each other from the time when they leave the nest until the succeeding

mating season (at any rate among resident species) and it has been unques¬

tionably proved that steady inbreeding in birds tends to produce albinism,

which undoubtedly is not a sign of a vigorous constitution.


At my time of life I assuredly do not desire to add many birds to my

aviaries. If I could afford to pay a regular skilled attendant to look after them

the case might be different; but, after many years, one grows weary of the

monotony of daily preparing soft food and fruit for insectivorous species and

supplying the many needs of a large living collection. I dare not trust the

happiness and well-being of my family to ignorant and unskilled persons, there¬

fore they live on year after year in perfect health and condition, and I perforce

have to spare at least an hour each morning from the culture of flowers, which

of late years I have returned to with fresh enthusiasm after many years of

partial neglect of them.


At one time my collection of living birds numbered 250 individuals ; now

it totals about 40. In the past three years I have purchased just six quite cheap

birds, all of which were brought to me : but though I neither desire nor intend

to add to my own responsibilities, I do sympathize with our poorer members

who would be glad to keep and perchance breed many of the beautiful things

which I used to obtain at reasonable prices, but which excessive bird-protection

has placed beyond their reach.


I never suggested that the species which had been well-nigh exterminated

by farmers and others were British; in fact I was thinking of Conuropsis

carolinensis and Ectopistes migratorius, both natives of the United States.


Cats ! ! I have always regarded these beasts as vermin ; I was born with

an inherent antipathy to them, as some persons to reptiles : now I love lizards ;

they are the only four-footed animals which I ever made great pets of, though at

various times I have also kept axolotls, newts, frogs and I think a salamander,

not to mention legless reptiles. We are not accountable for these likes and dis¬

likes, they may have some connection with our own earlier history or that of our



