Lost British Birds. 
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a race, which has diverged from the parent form during the 
long centuries of its isolated life on that wintry island where 
not a tree or shrub exists. Species, sub-species, or variety, 
it matters little ; what concerns us just now is the following 
fact. No sooner had the news gone abroad that “ lone St. 
Kilda’s isle ” possessed one little song-bird of her own—a 
wren that differed somewhat from the familiar wren—than 
it was invaded by the noble army of collectors, who did not 
mind its loneliness and distance from the mainland so long 
as they secured something for their cabinets; and the result 
of their invasion is that the St. Kilda wren no longer 
exists. 
It is after all very difficult to determine which of the 
following three inveterate bird-destroyers have done and are 
doing the most to alter, and, from the nature-lover’s point 
of view, to degrade, the character of our bird population :— 
The Cockney sportsman, who kills for killing’s sake ; the 
gamekeeper who has set down the five-and-twenty most in¬ 
teresting indigenous species as “ vermin ” to be extirpated; 
or, third and last, the greedy collector, whose methods are as 
discreditable as his action is injurious? 
