244 BIRDS AND MAN 



ceased to exist. Probably there is not a local 

 ornithologist in all the land who could not say 

 of some species that bred annually, within the 

 limits of his own county, that it has not been 

 extirpated within the last fifteen years. 



In the instance just related, when the aged 

 vicar, sorrowing at the loss of the birds, began 

 to recall the rare pleasure it had given him to 

 watch them disporting themselves among the 

 furze -bushes, something of the illusion which 

 had been in his mind imparted itself to mine, 

 for I could see what he was mentally seeing, 

 and the fifteen years dwindled to a very brief 

 space of time. Like Burroughs with the night- 

 ingale, I, too, had arrived a few days too late 

 on the scene ; the " cursed collector " had been 

 beforehand with me, as had indeed been the 

 case on so many previous occasions with regard 

 to other species. 



A short time after my interview with the 

 aged vicar, at an inn a very few mUes from the 

 village, I met a person who interested me in an 

 exceedingly unpleasant way. He was a big 

 repulsive-looking man in a greasy black coat — 

 a human animal to be avoided ; but I overheard 



