306 



ARE GUERNSEY BIRDS BRITISH ? 



lectors that ever he heard of used the word in the first of 

 these meanings, if the latter were the one meant it only 

 remained to ask whether, geographically, the Channel Islands 

 were part of England. In his opinion— geographically the 

 Channel Islands belonged to the French mainland. Miss 

 Carey's imaginary boundary line was an idea quite new 

 to him. Of course the question whether a bird or insect 

 was British or not had a considerable amount of legitimate 

 and scientific interest, but the extreme to which 44 collectors " 

 had carried it had done great mischief to the pursuit 

 of Natural History generally. What could be more absurd, 

 from a scientificpoint of view, than that a bird, for in- 

 stance, which, on account of its abundance on the south- 

 ern side of the Channel, might be procured there for six- 

 pence, should command some fabulous sum when found on 

 the northern side, and merely because of its rare occurrence 

 there. 



Miss Carey continued the discussion the following month 

 (Zoologist, July, page 3,145) and criticized Mr. Pickard- 

 Cambridge's definition of 44 British " as 44 merely Great 

 Britain and the adjacent islets," by asking if the Shetland 

 Isles were included in the definition, and added, 44 though 

 the Channel Islands are nearer to France than to England, 

 they are nearer to England than the Shetland Isles are to 

 Scotland, so that if a line extended equally round Great 

 Britain, which included the Shetland Isles, the Channel 

 Islands would be included also." Miss Carey's idea of the 

 imaginary line was that it should be at a certain equal dis- 

 tance all round Great Britain, and that either all objects 

 obtained within that line should be considered British, 

 whether the land was under foreign rule or not ; or that 

 where the line came across foreign countries it should not 

 take effect, so that although Calais might be within the line, 

 yet because it was not part of the British empire the birds 

 and other Natural History objects collected there would not 

 be called British. 



Mr.Pickard-Cambridge, replying to Miss Carey's criticism 

 {Zoologist, August, page 3,183) regretted his answer had 

 not been made clearer. He first assumed, hypothetically, 

 that by 44 British " people in general meant 44 found in Great 

 Britain and Ireland and their adjacent islets " ; but the 

 inference from what followed was, that nothing could be con- 

 sidered "British," in a scientific sense except the productions 

 of Great Britain, and, such islands as belonged geographically 

 to it. Under this rule, he considered, that the actual distance 



