i 88 o.] Our Friends and how we Treat them. 221 
Hence rare kinds are speedily blotted out, and others which 
probably have in former ages been inhabitants of our 
country, and which might re-establish themselves if left 
unmolested, have no chance of so doing. 
The mania for British specimens tends, therefore, to im* 
poverish the British fauna. We may here remark that of 
the birds shot and the inserts captured, not one in a hundred 
serves for any truly scientific purpose. Many of them are 
simply wasted ; many employed for barbaric decorations or 
worked up into uncouth devices. It is sad to see, in some 
cottage or country inn, a roller, or a bee-eater, or a hoopoe 
stuffed out of all approach to its natural shape, and to be told 
that it was killed in the neighbourhood. It is equally sad 
to read in the “ Loamshire Herald ” that a “ rose-coloured 
pastor was seen several times last week, and was duly shot 
by Mr. Addlepate, of this town.” 
We loathe the bird-catcher and the bird’s-nester, but we 
entertain quite as little affection for those who seek to 
destroy every beautiful species under the false pretext of 
“ collecting.” The true naturalist, whatever be his favourite 
department, is chary of animal life, and kills no specimens 
save the few required for determination, for dissection, or 
for experiment. 
There is yet another agency, quiet but effectual, by which 
the numbers of our inseCt-eating birds have been thinned. 
We refer to the agricultural reform, so-called, which reduces 
our fences to a mere nominal line of stumps, or replaces 
them with wire ; which seeks to abolish hedge-row trees, 
and lays small plots of land together into one huge field. 
We know that a certain amount of soil is thus economised, 
but there is the other side of the account to be considered. 
These very improvements deprive the birds of cover for 
their nests, and compel them to go elsewhere. The natural 
consequence is that the caterpillars, the aphides, the weevils, 
Halticce , and the like, in these model fields are not sought 
for and destroyed. If we require evidence for this assertion 
it may be found in the faCt that where hedge-rows and scat- 
tered trees are wanting, as in most parts of France and 
Spain, or where wire fences and railings are used in their 
stead, as in the Western States of America, there the 
damage from vermin is greatest. Then man — with Paris 
green, and fire, and traps, and cunningly-devised sweeping- 
machines — strives, at great expense and trouble, to undo 
the mischief which has sprung from his own short-sighted 
greediness. 
We have referred to the waste of birds and insects for 
