A CHAIR OF ECONOMIC ORNITHOLOGY 133 



contributed in December 191 3 to the Journal of the Land 

 Agents' Society. The whole paper is worthy of careful 

 consideration by the authorities before any further and 

 more drastic campaign is instituted against the Pheasant, 

 the direct effect of which on agriculture might be much 

 more injurious than helpful. Without giving the actual 

 schedule of crop-contents, it is sufficient to say that these 

 disclosed the remains of over 100,000 injurious beetles and 

 other insects, larvae, and slugs ; that there was a varied assort- 

 ment of vegetable refuse such as beech mast, wild berries, 

 weed seeds, and so forth, in a very large number of instances, 

 the actual "occurrences" being 421, but the individual 

 numbers not counted ; and that the total number of husks 

 and fragments of corn of any kind was 37. 



In a paper by Mr P. H. Grimshaw, of the Royal Scottish 

 Museum, published in the Scottish Naturalist for November 

 1912, the crop-contents of a single young cock Pheasant 

 from Argyllshire are recorded as follows : 



Insects Diptera : Bibio lepidus . . .2286 specimens 



,, Coleoptera: Lochm<easuturalis (Heather 



Beetle) . . . . . 508 



Sundries Ants, grasshoppers, etc. . 6 ,, 



2800 specimens 



and along with these, numerous tubers of the Lesser 

 Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), many fragments of leaves 

 of the Bulbous Crowfoot (Ranunculus btdbosus), and other 

 heterogeneous vegetable matter, most of it noxious. 



The damage occasioned by the Heather Beetle is now 

 only too well known. Large patches of heather, varying 

 in size from a few yards square to hundreds or even 

 thousands of acres, turn a rusty red, or withered grey 

 colour, and such areas are entirely useless for food, for 

 neither cattle, sheep, nor grouse will touch it. The fact 

 that this worthless condition of the heather is solely due 

 to the action of this beetle was first established by Mr 

 Grimshaw himself, in the course of his work as a member 

 of the scientific staff of the Committee appointed to 



