96 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
islands, very far removed from the mainland, where 
the animals have been exempt from all foreign com- 
petition — that is, from the competition of casual 
colonists — when it does come it proves, in many 
cases, fatal to them. Fortunately, this country's 
large size and nearness to the mainland has pre- 
vented any such fatal crystallization of its organisms 
as we see in islands like St. Helena. That any 
English species would be exterminated by foreign 
competition is extremely unlikely : whether we 
introduce exotic birds or not, the only losses we 
shall have to deplore in the future will, like those 
of the past, be directly due to our own insensate 
action in slaying every rare and beautiful thing 
with powder and shot. From the introduction of 
exotic species nothing is to be feared, but much to 
be hoped. 
There is another point which should not be 
overlooked. It has after all become a mere fiction 
to say that all places are occupied. Nature's nice 
order has been destroyed, and her kingdom thrown 
into the utmost confusion; our action tends to 
maintain the disorderly condition, while she is 
perpetually working against us to re-establish 
order. When she multiplies some common, little- 
regarded species to occupy a place left vacant by 
an artificially exterminated kind, the species called 
in as a mere stop-gap, as it were, is one not specially 
