AGRICULTURAL DAMAGE BY VERMIN AND BIRDS 75 



AGRICULTURAL DAMAGE BY VERMIN 

 AND BIRDS. 



By Hugh S. Gladstone, M.A., F.R.S.E., F.Z.S. 



At this present juncture, when practically the whole world is 

 engrossed in war, it is essential that bird-lovers should see 

 that the interests of the birds of our country are not 

 jeopardised. The benefits of our Wild Bird Protection Acts 

 and Game Laws are now being called in question, and our 

 legislators seem to have a leaning towards war-time measures 

 so extreme as to be in danger of killing the goose which lays 

 the golden egg. It may be that this spirit of destruction is 

 all part and parcel of the ruthlessness of the war fever which 

 now pervades the world, but it would be interesting to know 

 if the cool calculating Hun has ever advanced such devastat- 

 ing theories for the wholesale destruction of birds as have 

 recently been advocated in our British Press. 



Economic ornithology is a study which in Great Britain 

 has only lately begun to receive any expert attention, and 

 though the excellent work done by Messrs W. E. Collinge, 

 C. F. Archibald, J. Gilmour, F. V. Theobald, H. S. Leigh, 

 Miss Laura Florence and others is most valuable, it is to be 

 hoped that, at no distant date, there may be set up in this 

 country an ornithological bureau similar to that already in 

 existence in the United States. Individual investigations 

 into such a wide question as the food of birds are bound to 

 be hampered by lack of material, which deficiency a central 

 body, with travelling observers, would be better able to 

 overcome. 



The recently published report by Mr R. T. Gunther on 

 the Agricultural Damage by Vermin and Game x is very 

 opportune. His investigations were restricted to but two 

 counties in England and only extended over little more 

 than a year ; too small an area and top short a period on 



1 Report on Agricultural Datnage by Vermin and Birds in the 

 Counties of Norfolk and Oxfordshire in 1916. By R. T. Gunther, M.A., 

 F.Z.S. Published by the Oxford University Press, 191 7, at 2s. 6d. net. 



