A CHAIR OF ECONOMIC ORNITHOLOGY 127 



that is not the case here. Song-thrushes are very numerous 

 here in spring and summer, exceedingly so in autumn at 

 the season of the passage migration, and almost wholly 

 absent in winter. Our British Blackbirds are not perhaps 

 migratory to the same extent as the Song-thrush, and it is 

 possible they may not leave us at all. A few years ago one 

 with a white head was with us for three consecutive winters 

 (it was killed by a cat and brought into a house in the third 

 winter), but it always disappeared before the breeding season. 

 From this I am inclined to believe that the Song-thrush or 

 Blackbird who takes a small toll of the strawberries or 

 gooseberries in July is the individual who has been an 

 industrious gardener all summer, but that almost before 

 even the small-fruit season is over, many of the Blackbirds 

 and all the Song-thrushes have gone from us to be seen no 

 more for good or ill till February comes round ; and that the 

 birds seen in autumn and for the most part in the open 

 fields are the migrating flocks making their way south 

 from areas far to our north. 



If I am right in this, the indiscriminate slaughter of 

 Blackbirds and Song-thrushes in the nesting season, under 

 the belief that the fruit crops will thereby be conserved, may 

 do more harm than good to these very crops, and this, even 

 although fruit may form the bulk of the crop-contents of 

 selected individuals, killed for examination in the fruit season. 

 The fruit diet is noticed at once, but the unostentatious con- 

 sumption of countless hosts of grubs and insects, especially 

 in the early mornings, is much less readily observed. 



In these days the correspondence columns of the daily 

 papers are filled with letters advocating the general destruc- 

 tion of birds that are supposed to be injurious, and already 

 Pheasants have been recommended for persecution during 

 their nesting season, Gulls of all kinds are excepted from the 

 operation of the Wild Birds' Protection Acts, and Sparrow 

 Clubs have received the special benison of the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries. 



As regards sea birds, I have little first-hand information. 

 The diet of these birds has however been under the careful 

 investigation of the Suffolk and Essex Fishery Board which 



