It is, I imagine, a sense capable of cultivation, and
enables us to look upon many of man's doings that would
otherwise vex and pain us, and, as some say, destroy all the
pleasure of our lives, not exactly as an illusion, as if we
were Japanese and had seen a fox in the morning, but at all
events in what we call a philosophic spirit.
What troubled me most was the consideration of the effect of
the new conditions on the wild life of the plain--or of a very
large portion of it. I knew of this before, but it was
nevertheless exceedingly unpleasant when I came to witness it
myself when I took to spying on the military as an amusement
during my idle time. Here we have tens of thousands of very
young men, boys in mind, the best fed, healthiest, happiest
crowd of boys in all the land, living in a pure bracing
atmosphere, far removed from towns, and their amusements and
temptations, all mad for pleasure and excitement of some kind
to fill their vacant hours each day and their holidays.
Naturally they take to birds'-nesting and to hunting every
living thing they encounter during their walks on the downs.
Every wild thing runs and flies from them, and is chased or
stoned, the weak-winged young are captured, and the nests
picked or kicked up out of the turf. In this way the
creatures are being extirpated, and one can foresee that when
hares and rabbits are no more, and even the small birds of the
plain, larks, pipits, wheatears, stonechats, and whincats,
have vanished, the hunters in khaki will take to the chase
of yet smaller creatures--crane-flies and butterflies and
dragon-flies, and even the fantastic, elusive hover-flies
which the hunters of little game will perhaps think the most
entertaining fly of all.
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