278 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



" The situation at present is this : the English Sparrow, which 

 must be classed amongst the worst of vermin, is now established in 

 Durban, but so far does not extend to the rest of British South Africa. 

 Nothing to control its increase and spread is being done, and the 

 question is whether we in Natal are to sit idle and allow the pest not 

 only to become a nuisance to ourselves, but a menace to the rest of 

 the colonies. 



" I know there are arguments against the extermination and de- 

 struction of Sparrows. They are all the same, and have been used 

 over and over again, but they are mere platitudes of senseless and 

 ignorant or unobservant people. The case for and against the bird 

 has been fought out again and again. It has been argued before 

 Select Committees of the House of Commons, and before those of 

 colonial legislatures. It has been argued by many scientific men in 

 many lands, and in every case the weight of evidence has been against 

 the Sparrow, and the verdicts such as to warrant this colony in 

 taking every measure to suppress the birds altogether, at once and at 

 any cost." 



Theke is always a romance attached to the obituary of the last 

 representative animal in a local fauna, and this applies to the last 

 wild Eed Deer in Co. Donegal. This story, as told by Mr. W. F. de 

 Vismes Kane, has been recently communicated by Mr. R. "Welch to 

 our excellent contemporary ' The Irish Naturalist,' and we venture to 

 reproduce it as it appeared, for it would lose by abstract or condensa- 

 tion : — 



"It must have been about the year 1862 that I was Salmon- 

 fishing in the Lackagh, and Mr. Stewart's (of Ards) water-keeper, 

 Edward Gallagher (if I do not mistake a name that was once familiar 

 to me) attended me. The Salmon were then more keen at taking the 

 fly than they became afterwards, and he was a sure hand with the gaff. 

 He had a very old bedridden father — he might have been ninety years 

 old from his looks — who told many stories about that part of the 

 country. He said his father, a very old man, told him that when he 

 first came to those parts the country was very sparsely inhabited, and 

 to see any of his neighbours he had to travel over the hills and bogs 

 seven to ten miles. The Lackagh was then so full of Salmon that it 

 was easy to gaff as many as one wanted in the season, and the rocky 

 banks ( l Lack 'agh) were full of wild cats, who fed on the fish killed 

 by the Otters, and left with only a bite or two taken out of them. 

 Also that there were still plenty of Deer in the mountains still sur- 

 viving, and that very occasionally word was sent round that part of 



