The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

by Kirk Wallace Johnson

while on the other hand, should civilized man ever reach these distant lands … we may be sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. ‘This consideration,’ he concluded, ‘must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man.’63