EXTERMINATION IN ANIMAL LIFE. 411 



dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals 

 perished. Under Trajan the games continued for one hundred 

 and twenty-three successive days. And, says Mr. Lecky, these 

 are but a few of the many examples given by Magnin, who has 

 collected a vast array of authorities on the subject.* 



It is probable that many species of wildfowl only continue to 

 exist by their migratory habits and their consequent long absence 

 from the neighbourhood of the gunner. What a more prolonged 

 visit to the areas where shooting is in vogue would effect on their 

 numbers may be estimated by the perusal of a few inventories 

 of game-bags. " As many as eighty-five, and upon another 

 occasion one hundred and six, Teal have been picked up after a 

 well-directed shot from a punt-gun — the former by Sir Ealph 

 Payne-Gallwey, the latter off the Irish coast. "t "Sometimes 

 during a lull in a spell of rough weather vast flocks of Wigeon 

 concentrate themselves on the ooze, and it is at this time they 

 are sought by the puntsman or fowler. When good shots have 

 been obtained at such masses of birds over a hundred have been 

 killed at a single shot, and this explains why Wigeon are sold 

 so cheaply in the markets." \ Long ago Kohl recorded that on 

 the coasts of the North Sea twenty thousand Wild Ducks were 

 usually taken in the course of the season in a single decoy, and 

 sent to the large maritime towns for sale.§ After this, though 

 no reasons are given, we are not surprised to read that the Pied 

 Labrador Duck (Somateria labradoria), formerly abundant on the 

 coast of Labrador and the mouth of the St. Lawrence, appears to 

 have become extinct since 1852. || Snaring is equally destructive. 

 On the island of St. Kilda, with his fowling-rod one man has 

 been known to have once bagged no fewer than six hundred and 

 twenty Puffins in a single day.^T On the same island it has been 

 calculated that 22,500 Solan Geese have been caught and con- 



f ' Origines du Theatre,' pp. 445-53. Quoted by Lecky, ' Hist. Europ. 

 Morals,' vol. i. p. 280. 



f Cf. Watson, ' Poachers and Poaching,' p. 198. 



I Watson, ibid., p. 201. 



§ ' Die Herzogthumer Schleswig und Holstein,' i. p. 203. Quoted by 

 Marsh, ' Man and Nature,' p. 97. 



|| Ogilvie Grant, ' Royal Nat. Hist.' iv. p. 355. 



^T Kearton, ' With Nature and a Camera,' p. 81. 



