4 BRITISH MAMMALS 



and relate park anecdotes of park-fed beasts. There are lessons, 

 however (one must humbly admit), to be learnt even from the 

 nineteen varieties of the wood mouse and the violent amours of 

 the mole. 



But as it is the aesthetic aspect of the Mammalia which first 

 attracted the author of this book, it is that on which he most 

 wishes to insist in his arguments. If in any way he has brought 

 home to his readers the importance of Mammalia to the landscape 

 aspects of Britain, the desirability of preserving and strengthening 

 the species that remain (not because they are good for food or 

 sport or unobstructive to the aims of the farmer or the citizen, 

 but because they are beautiful or stimulating to intellectual 

 interest), he will not have written in vain. Man does not live 

 by bread alone. He requires to fill his Hfe with an enjoyment of 

 beauty, a bracing of the nerves by wholesome danger, a stimula- 

 tion of the intellect by the mysteries of Creation. If we succeed 

 in extirpating our wild beasts and birds, or in reducing a few of 

 them to fattened, pied, frilled monstrosities (an action which will 

 probably proceed concurrently with the extermination of our 

 native flora by field clubs, costermongers, and agriculturists), life 

 in England, Scotland, or Ireland will no longer be worth living, 

 since man cannot live by bread alone, nor can roast beef and 

 potatoes wholly atone for the extirpation of the aurochs and 

 the Osmunda fern. One may admire the pheasant greatly as a 

 beautiful bird, and blind oneself to all peevish evidence brought 

 forward to show that it is not indigenous ; but one should admit 

 that the weasel is quite as beautiful and half again as interesting. 

 Still more, the polecat ; while the wild cat should be permitted to 

 make moderate ravages on live-stock, and the damage done be 

 paid by an interested countryside from out of the rates. 



It was distressing to read how, during a yachting cruise 

 in the summer of 1902, the suite that accompanied very dis- 

 tinguished persons gleefully took advantage of their proximity 

 to little-frequented Scotch islands and islets to shoot and leave, 

 kill uselessly without excuse, quite a large number of the few 

 seals which still remain in Scottish waters. The otter is being 



