ECONOMIC ORNITHOLOGY 271 



farmer, eating off whole fields of cabbage, attacking grain, 

 pulse, clover, and tops of turnips ; later woodpigeons take 

 cherries and gooseberries. 



Many years ago the Earl of Haddington made investigation 

 into the food and habits of the Woodpigeon ; the results showed 

 it to be very harmful to agriculture. Gilmour (16) says "that 

 as years go by the character of the Woodpigeon does not 

 improve, but his destruction of clover and grain far outweighs 

 any benefit he may effect." 



In the woods, too, they do harm devouring buds, catkins, 

 seeds, and breaking the leaders of firs and spruce. " This 

 bird should decrease in numbers," says Mr. Cecil Hooper, 

 "for it is good food and worth is. a brace." Yet we neglect 

 this matter, and still go on persecuting those keen farmers' 

 friends, the Lapwings or Green Plovers, by taking their eggs, 

 set and sound alike. 



The Stockdove, where it occurs in numbers, appears to be 

 as bad as the Woodpigeon. 



The Turtle Dove {Turtur communis, Selby), a summer visitor, 

 does some harm to fields of tares and peas, but is seldom 

 sufficiently abundant to occasion any serious loss to the farmer. 

 The forester suffers from this bird in the late spring, when 

 it eats up seedlings, and again when it alights in flocks on 

 sowings, and does much damage, so we are informed by 

 Fisher (8). There is no doubt that the Doves take weed seeds, 

 but many of these are passed whole. The good they do 

 cannot then be said to balance the amount of damage caused 

 by them to the farmer and forester, and their numbers should 

 be kept in check. 



The Lapwing, Green Plover, or Peewit {Vanellus cristatus, 

 Linn.) is well known and still common, but in many districts its 

 numbers have been sadly reduced. This is due entirely to the 

 ruthless destruction of the eggs. It is said that high prices are 

 paid for the eggs as articles of diet. We venture to disagree — 

 high prices are charged in shops for them, but low prices are 

 given for them to the collectors. The reason is that often the 

 greater number collected are set and thus valueless. The 

 result of this collection is that many insects injurious to crops 

 multiply enormously. There is no bird more beneficial to 

 the cultivator than the Lapwing. Its food consists entirely 

 of wireworms, leather-jackets, surface larvae, snails, slugs, and 



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