76 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



which to give any final dictum as to the value or otherwise of 

 any species. Mr Gunther's Report is, nevertheless, a valuable 

 contribution to the subject, generally in agreement with those 

 authorities who have preceded him, and may be summarised 

 as follows : (i) The total extinction of Rats and Sparrows is 

 advocated. (2) Pigeons and Rabbits, though unmitigated 

 pests on the farm, have a food-value for which they merit 

 consideration. (3) Rooks and Starlings are friends to the 

 farmer up to a certain point, after which they become his 

 enemies. All hinges on the abundance or scarcity, locally, of. 

 their favourite animal food ; if there is a distress the species 

 are capable of doing serious damage to crops. The winter 

 immigrants appear to be far greater ravagers than the 

 summer birds. (4) It is fallacious to argue that if one kind 

 does a certain amount of good, two kinds will do twice as 

 much : it is highly misleading to apply the method of simple 

 arithmetic to biological problems. (5) The Pheasant, in 

 moderation, on the score of his superior food-value, is entitled 

 to a fair share of agricultural produce. During the greater 

 part of the year he does no harm and much good. When 

 Pheasants are in such numbers as to exhaust the supply of 

 readily accessible insect food, they are compelled to seek 

 nourishment of another kind and damage to crops will ensue. 

 The number kept should not exceed one Pheasant per acre. 

 (6) The farmer's very best friends are birds like the Lap- 

 wing, which are wholly insectivorous. 



The whole Report is worthy of close reading, and 

 although the greater part of it is devoted to the Pheasant, 

 this is not surprising when we remember that under the 

 Defence of the Realm Regulations an Order was made in 

 February. 19 1 7, entitled the Destruction of Pheasants Order, 

 by which Pheasant-killing is permitted until 31st March 

 (and by a subsequent Order was extended to " any time while 

 the Order is in operation ") in cases in which War 

 Agricultural Executive Committees in England and Wales 

 are satisfied that damage to crops is being done. Mr 

 Gunther sums up that " the Pheasant improperly managed 

 may be a source of danger to agriculture and a stimulus to 

 class hatred, but, properly preserved, is a benefit to the 



