274 
INSULARITY. 
it. The brutalities of the sea-side gunner are notorious and 
abominable, and every one is heartily anxious to secure the 
sea-fowl from bis cruelty, and, for the matter of that, to secure 
the land-birds from an almost equally pitiless trio—the village 
loafer, the game-preserver or game-keeper, who looks upon 
nature as a vast establishment, in which be is a main actor, for 
raising the greatest possible number of young pheasants and 
partridges ; and, thirdly, the farmer who is prejudiced and 
undiscriminating enough to see in the presence of any kind 
of bird whatever the attack of a direct foe. But the Act 
itself bears evidence of having been the work of those who 
had very little practical knowledge of their subject, with the 
assistance of a few third-rate naturalists and sentimentalists. 
The schedules containing the names of the birds are simply 
ridiculous. And the consideration of the Act leads me to 
notice its practical injustice. In no other country of 
which I have any experience is the scientific worker treated 
by the legislature with such contemptuous indifference as in 
this. Our Government does very little indeed, comparatively, 
for the science which enriches and ennobles the country— 
does not even go the length of securing facilities. The Eng¬ 
lish ornithologist, who is suddenly brought face to face with, 
perhaps, a unique opportunity for adding a new record (as the 
cant word of the day has it) to the Fauna of his country—if 
it be during the close season, and he a person of any 
sensitiveness—must naturally hesitate to incur the familiar 
indignities of the English law. He is well aware of the 
“Old Bushman’s” dictum, which has passed into a common 
proverb with ornithologists, that “what is hit, is history; 
what is missed, is mystery.” But he also knows, that if he 
gave the rein to his scientific enthusiasm, and had the ill- 
fortune to be brought in consequence before the Bench to 
answer for his enormities, the magistrates, however much 
they might sympathise with him, would be powerless, and 
would have to lay on him a penalty, and a stigma, which the 
right lion, member for Derby, in his well-known tender gentle¬ 
ness, has put it out of their power to lay upon the back of the 
prowling loafer, who, for mere greed, shoots a doe hare with 
helpless young ones dependent upon her. 
I cannot see why a recognised worker in natural history 
should be unable to obtain the privilege of a license to procure 
during the whole year the few birds he is likely to want, on 
the understanding that his doing so was, according to his 
judgment, for the benefit of science, and that he satisfied the 
requirements of the Inland Revenue Board in the matter of a 
game license. Such a document, countersigned by the 
