68 Shall Gyr Falcon join the Auk in Never Never Land. 
makes me anxious not to be confounded with him, as I think the 
present mania for egg and bird collecting deplorable, considering 
the difficulties it places in the way of study when so much remains 
to be learned of the habits of living birds. Minute description 
of plumage, leading to the discovery of what is called a subspecies, 
which leads in turn to the slaughter of hundreds of birds in order 
that those who wish to be considered ornithologists may see their 
names in print, is one of the saddest features of modern ornithology, 
while the wholesale meddling with scientific nomenclature has 
rendered it almost useless as a means of communication with 
foreigners. Rare birds have no greater enemy than the scientific 
collector. I was only lately reading an account by an ornithologist 
of his hunts after Sea Eagles’ eggs in Scotland, and it left me 
wondering whether future generations will consider his complete 
works any compensation for the extinction of the bird. That 
grand bird, the Gyr Falcon of Iceland, is now on the very 
verge of extinction owing to the way it is being harried by 
ornithologists and collectors employed by wealthy dulettantt. 
Reasoned remonstrances are of no avail against this sense- 
less destruction of rare birds, and more and more will become 
extinct unless the formation of private collections is made illegal. 
The multiplication of museums is also of doubtful benefit. No 
town is complete nowadays without a museum, and its curator, 
of course, desires all the rarest birds to be represented. On my 
last visit to Chester Museum, one of the best in the kingdom, I 
found the latest acquisition was an osprey shot in the neighbour- 
hood. Considering that nine-tenths of the visitors do not probably 
know an osprey from an ostrich, and do not care, I think a museum 
is the wrong place for a bird which is nearly extinct. Words, 
however, have as little effect as the sandwich-boards carried 
about in London imploring women not to wear rare birds’ feathers 
in their hats; but, at any rate, these are some of my reasons why 
I wish my readers to consider me simply as a bird-lover. 
