EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 155 



so very easy to say, " Kill the sparrow, or shark, 

 or magpie, or whatever it is, and then everything 

 will be right." But there are more things in nature 

 than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the class of 

 reformers represented by the gamekeeper, and the 

 gamekeeper's master, and Miss Ormerod, and Mr. 

 Henry George. Let him by all means kill the sharks, 

 but he will not conquer Nature in that way : she 

 will make more sharks out of something else — 

 possibly out of the very salmon on which he proposes 

 to regale his hungry disciples. To go into details 

 is not the present writer's purpose ; and to finish 

 with this part of the subject, it is sufficient to add that 

 in the very wide and varied field occupied by the 

 sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible 

 to a species having no special and highly perfected 

 feeding instincts, there is room for the introduction 

 of scores of competitors, every one of which should 

 be better adapted than the sparrow to find a sub- 

 sistence at that point or that particular part of the 

 field where the two would come into rivalry ; and 

 every species introduced should also possess some 

 quality which would make it, from the aesthetic 

 point of view, a valuable addition to our bird life. 

 This would be no war of violence, and no contra- 

 vention of Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, 

 a return to her safe, healthy, and far-reaching 

 methods. 



