106 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
class of reformers represented by the gamekeeper, 
and the gamekeeper's master, and Miss Ormerod, 
and Mr. Henry George. Let him by all means kill 
the sharks, but he will not conquer Nature in that 
way : she will make more sharks out of something 
else — possibly out of the very salmon on which he 
proposes to regale his hungry disciples. To go 
into details is not the present writer's purpose; 
and to finish with this part of the subject, it is 
sufficient to add that in the very wide and varied 
field occupied by the sparrow, in that rough in- 
effectual manner possible to a species having no 
special and highly perfected feeding instincts, there 
is room for the introduction of scores of com- 
petitors, every one of which should be better 
adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at 
that point or that particular part of the field where 
the two would come into rivalry ; and every species 
introduced should also possess some quality which 
would make it, from the aesthetic point of vievv^ 
a valuable addition to our bird life. This would 
be no war of violence, and no contravention 
of Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, a 
return to her safe, healthy, and far-reaching 
methods. 
There is one objection some may make to the 
scheme suggested here which must be noticed. It 
may be said that even if exotic species able to 
