INSULARITY. 
273 
creatures lie amasses the mummies of—a creature is of no 
value to him until it has been killed and filled with wires and 
cotton wool, or put in a drawer with a pin stuck through it. 
His ambition is to have as complete a collection as possible of 
the birds, insects, or plants of his vicinity. How far the 
appearance of those objects is connected with the nature of 
the soil, or the seasons, and what functions they discharge, 
are matters that do not enter into his ken; enough for him 
that he has examples of them in his collection. On the 
whole, it is much to be regretted that persons afflicted with 
the “cacoethes possidendi” do not more generally turn their 
attention to second-hand postage stamps. 
Not but what they do at times benefit science by turning 
up an unexpected species; but, as a rule, they miss the great 
rarities for want of accurate knowledge. Not but what, too, 
the possession of specimens not unfrequently generates a wish 
to know more of them, which leads to better things. But I 
should consider that the good they do is quite counterbalanced 
by the evil; for it is impossible for some of the more con¬ 
spicuous birds, such as the golden oriole, the hoopoe, and 
the larger birds of prey, to get a footing in our country, owing 
to the ceaseless vigilance of the collector; and some birds 
are verging on extinction, as British residents, owing to their 
senseless persecution by game-preservers, and the high prices 
that collectors will give for their eggs. 
I would implore all who are anxious to obtain the eggs of 
the rarer British birds, to be content with foreign specimens, 
from countries where they are abundant enough not to be 
missed. I have not the least doubt that I have found tliirtv 
nests of the woodcock in Britain, but I have only one egg, 
and that was an addled one. And I have taken one egg of 
the crane, and that was addled also. 
Foreign eggs and skins are quite as valuable for purposes 
of study and comparison as those taken at home, and we 
naturalists ought to set our faces against insularity in the 
shape of the unjustifiable and injurious rage for British-killed 
skins, and British-laid eggs of those birds which are within a 
measurable distance of extinction in our islands. I will just 
add here a little story, which is not, I think, an unfair skit 
upon the mere collector. It was of a Yorkshire collier, who 
had just lost his only child, and who was being condoled with 
by a friend. He said, tearfully, but with earnestness, “Ah 
dew wish ail’d had t’lyle beggar stuffed.” 
I cannot help looking upon the Wild Birds’ Protection 
Act as a specimen of insularity. In so doing I would not be 
thought to question the propriety of its main object—far from 
