13 



Otter, are becoming rare as British species. These all owe their 

 extinction to man. The Bed Deer, Koebuck, and Fallow Deer only 

 exist by means of protective legislation. 



Of birds, the Capercailzie, or " Cock of the Wood," is extinct 

 with us, though still occurring in Norway. The two Bustards (Otis 

 tetrax, the little bustard, Otis tarda, the great bustard), are both ex- 

 terminated. Formerly they could live on the wastes of West Nor- 

 folk and Wiltshire. The great Crested Grebe — Podiceps cristatus, 

 the great Bittern — Botaarus stellaris, and the freckled Heron, Botaurus 

 lentiginosa, once rejoiced in the Fens of Cambridgeshire and Dorset. 

 The fen-lands are gradually becoming drained and cultivated, and 

 these birds are mostly dead. The White Spoon Bill (Platalea 

 leucorodia), the White Stork (Cicomia alba), and the little Glossy 

 Ibis (Falcinella igneus), once were summer visitants of ours, now 

 they come no more. The Herons are fast dying out, and require 

 " Protection " like the Grouse and Partridges. The Golden Eagle 

 and numbers of Falconidoe, and lesser birds of prey have also been 

 lost. 



Among the interesting associations of the past, to the Naturalist, 

 will always be counted the Great Auk, once an inhabitant of 

 the Orkneys and the shores of Denmark, found in the Kitchen- 

 Middens of both, and also in the Indian Shell-heaps of New 

 England. The last of his race is believed to have perished so lately 

 as 1846. And no wonder ! for the poor bird could not fly, so the 

 old Danish sailors used to lay a plank from the ship to the shore, 

 and compel their unfortunate victims to " Walk the plank," " single 

 file," and fall into the ship's waist, where they were killed and 

 eaten. One skipper boasted that he had brought off thirty boat- 

 loads in an hour. Once this bird covered the shores of the north — 

 Labrador, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland. Now 

 we look in vain for a single one. 



The Dutch sailors were just as merciless to the Dodo in the Mauri- 

 tius, and the Maories to the Binomis and the Great Eail in New Zea- 

 land, and the people of Madagascar to the Epyornis. 



Changes (insensibly it may be, yet, nevertheless, surely) are going 

 on year by year around us. We see but little in the lifetime of an 



