EXOTIC BIRDS FOB BBITAIN. 
107 
thrive in our country were introduced there would 
be no result; for these strangers to our groves 
would all eventually meet with the same fate as 
our rarer species and casual visitors — that is to 
say, they would be shot. There is no doubt that 
the amateur naturalist has been a curse to this 
country for the last half century, that it is owing 
to the "cupidity of the cabinet" — as old Kobert 
Mudie has it — that many of our finer species are 
exceedingly rare, while others are disappearing 
altogether. But it is surel^^ not too soon to look 
for a change for the better in this direction. Half 
a century ago, when the few remaining great 
bustards in this country were being done to death, 
it was suddenly remembered by naturalists that in 
their eagerness to possess examples of the bird (in 
the skin) they had neglected to make themselves 
acquainted with its customs when alive. Its habits 
were hardly better known than those of the dodo 
and solitaire. The reflection came too late, in so 
far as the habits of the bird in this country are 
concerned ; but unhappily the lesson was not then 
taken to heart, and other fine species have since 
gone the way of the great bustard. But now that 
we have so clearly seen the disastrous efiects of 
this method of "studying ornithology," which is 
not in harmony with our humane civilization, it is 
to be hoped that a better method will be adopted 
