310 



ARE GUERNSEY BIRDS BRITISH ? 



next year I should receive the following note from Mr. Birchall 

 himself :—' How are you^ off for Daplidice ? I have taken a few 

 hundreds in Guernsey this summer, and will send you a boxfull for 

 distribution on your Friday evenings if you like ; and, by the way, I 

 have lots of Lathonias, if you care for them ; also a score or two of 

 D. Euphorbise. How many shall I send of each ? ' What would 

 be the effect on the dealers, the buyers and the sellers ? A bombshell 

 bursting among them could not produce greater consternation. After 

 the first panic, reducing the quotations r f Daplidices and Lathonias 

 to zero, they would probably look upwards, and finally settle at three- 

 pence or sixpence each. The little island of Heligoland is introduced 

 by Mr. Birchall as a kind of stumbling-block in the way of such an 

 arrangement: by all means let us include the stumbling-block also. 

 Seeing that my friend can show that Heligoland is British in the same 

 sense as Guernsey and Jersey— and prove that it is included in the 

 'United Kingdom,' as intended by our Acts of Parliament,— by all 

 manner of means let us call it British, and incorporate its Fauna with 

 that of Great Britain properly so called.* With regard to Gibraltar 

 and Malta, we had better d^fer the question of annexing their Fauna 

 until botanists have annexed their Flora, when we may with considerable 

 show of propriety consider such a step. It seems incumbent on those 

 who advocate the adoption with our Fauna of a different course 

 from that universally accepted for our Flora, to state explicitly the 

 grounds for maintaining such a usage. Does any other country in the 

 world adopt such a course ? Does any country in the world consider 

 its plants indigenous and the creatures that feed on them exotic? 

 But my friend says 'the sea is a definite boundary'; true, yet this 

 argument would not only eliminate the Channel Islands, but would 

 cut off all the Scottish islands, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and even the 

 Isle of Wight." 



Edward Newman. 



And so ended the controversy, ladies and gentlemen, 

 at any rate as far as this volume of the Zoologist is 

 concerned. 



As regards my own opinion on the subject I have very 

 little to say, but I should like to state that I incline to Mr. 

 Pickard-Cambridge's view of the matter and think his 

 " simple solution " the proper course to be followed by both 

 English and French Naturalists who may turn their atten- 

 tion to the Channel Islands. In scientific matters sentiment 

 should be made to stand on one side and facts be stared 

 squarely in the face. 



Geographically considered the Channel Islands are cer- 

 tainly more French than English, and if there be any 

 difference in their Fauna and Flora one would naturally, 

 as it seems to me, expect to find it more nearly agreeing 

 with that of Normandy and Brittany than w 7 ith that of 

 England, just as we should as naturally expect the pro- 

 ductions of the Scilly Islands and the Isle of Wight to more 

 closely resemble the productions of England than of France. 



* Heligoland, of course, as we all are aware, is no longer British. It was 

 acquired by Germany in 1890. 



