CHAPTER X 
BIRD POPULATION 
BRITISH ornithologists have good reason to be 
depressed, and to wish that they had lived in the 
days of their grandfathers. One bird after another 
passes away exterminated by sportsmen, collectors, 
drainage, or increase of population. The Bittern 
when he comes to us is shot before he can nest; the 
Great Bustard only occasionally strays here; the 
Golden Eagle is only to be seen in remote moun- 
tainous parts of our islands, and the Bearded Tit 
lingers on in but two or three counties. And the 
evil seems likely to increase. Nothing, I believe, but 
the establishment of protected districts, on a larger 
scale than has hitherto been accomplished by private. 
persons, can check it. Parliament may perhaps some 
day grant charters to societies of naturalists allowing 
them to maintain such oases, and punish as a thief 
any one who steals eggs or birds from the sacred 
precincts. | 
The question of diminution of species is, however, 
quite different from the question of diminution of 
