116 ON THE SEA-BIRDS PRESEBVATION ACT, 



appreciable extent ; but what drives away the birds fi'om us are 

 chiefly the alterations made by man in the enclosure and drainage 

 of the land. 



No one can determine Nature's reasons for having assigned pe- 

 culiar limits to the breeding grounds of birds, nor can we extend 

 those of migratory species. Man may, and has introduced and 

 acclimatized some species, but these are very limited in number, 

 and perhaps those which he has succeeded in acclimatising or 

 domesticating were especially intended to be made subservient 

 and useful to live in this especial manner. 



I do not in the least like sentimental grievances, but any law 

 prohibiting the killing of migratory birds on mud flats and such 

 like unreclaimed places is both unjust and unnecessary. No one 

 can pretend that birds frequenting such places either do or ought 

 to belong to him. One day they are perhaps in Africa or on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean ; they arc perhaps next observed on 

 the Norfolk coast, and tlie next place they may be met with is, 

 perhaps, in Lapland, Iceland, or even North America ; besides, it 

 is only those who are at the trouble to follow them into their 

 haunts who see them alive. So soon as they have rested long 

 enough, off they go, and the flats are left bare, and no one would 

 follow the few birds left, except perhaps some entliusiast in the 

 liope of meeting -with something rare, wliich, if procured, would 

 do no liarm whatever, as it would only be a straggler out of its 

 proper place. Such migratory birds are totally independent of 

 man and all his de^'ice8 to extirpate them, and against these they 

 can and will hold their own. Should man be able to control the 

 tides, even still lie could not prevail against these birds ; for if 

 their feeding places were entirely destroyed here, their powers of 

 flight would enable them to pass on unheedingly to another place; 

 but so long as man cannot control the tides, there will remain 

 ph-nty of resting places for them, where they are often unap- 

 proachable even with punts or other contrivances ; and if they 

 are approached and a few are shot, the remainder seldom alight 

 again within any reasonable distance, and cannot be followed. 

 It is tot^illy different with such birds as Partridges and other 

 game birds which an- local in their movements, and at times 



