INSULARITY. 
‘245 
history.” Reverent students of nature as she is will only be 
grieved to see sentimentalism imported into their favourite 
study. 
We naturalists have another foe, who similarly desires to 
pass himself off under the guise of a brother, when he is 
nothing of the sort. I allude to the person who is a collector, 
and a collector only—not a student of nature—not one whose 
aim it is to make his collection when made an only more 
accurate book to read. I am not now speaking of the dealer, 
who is earning his living by the collection of specimens to be 
resold to those who require them. There are, however, 
dealers and dealers. But it is not of dealers that I am speak¬ 
ing—some of whom I desire to mention with all respect— 
but of amateur collectors. A great deal of the disfavour with 
which ornithologists are looked upon is brought upon them 
by amateur sportsmen and collectors. From these the 
ornithologist gets a reputation for ruthlessness, which I am 
convinced, from a pretty extensive acquaintance with him and 
his ways, he by no means deserves in the main. The 
naturalist proper, though ready to take life if the doing so 
will advance what he justly considers his lawful aim, is no 
less humane than ordinary mortality—indeed, if any thing, 
more so. He conceives himself entitled, on the highest 
authority, to take life for a definite purpose, and his, he con¬ 
siders, is a high one, but he won’t tread on a worm or a 
beetle, or flatten a spider, because he considers it to be ugly, 
as many will. I have been often enough in the company of 
gentlemen whose title to be ranked as ornithologists is beyond 
question, and for weeks at a time, whilst they were, as one 
might say, on the war-path, and though they had guns 
constantly in their hands, they have made very little use of 
them; but, on the other hand, a very great deal of use of 
their field glasses. Anything that was killed, was killed 
because it was wanted to fill up a gap in their collection of 
reference, and was invariably utilised. At the very same 
time I have heard and seen the amateur sportsman cannon¬ 
ading away like an animated Gatling gun, slaughtering the 
beautiful and harmless gulls and sea swallows by the dozen— 
and, indeed, anything else that would let him get near enough. 
They were of no use to him when he got them, especially in 
such numbers; indeed, these gentry rarely take the trouble 
to pick up what they kill, much less to be humane enough to 
put the wounded and maimed out of their sufferings. I have 
seen myself the seashore almost strewed with dead sea 
swallows, the day after these brutes had been about, the 
taking of whose lives answered no purpose whatever, and 
