VI.^LOOSE LEAVES FROM A SHOOTER'S DIARY. 

 I. Introductory. 



You will remember in " Alice thro' the looking-glass " the various 

 subjects that the Walrus offered for debate to the party of Oysters 

 accompanying the Carpenter and himself. It was at the end of the 

 walk and before the final tragedy : 



" The time has come," the Walrus said, 



" To talk of many things : 



" Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, 



" Of cabbages and kings, 



" And why the sea is boiling hot, 



" And whether pigs have wings." 

 I am a little alarmed lest you may fail to find any connecting 

 thread running through the notes I propose submitting to you in 

 this chapter. You may feel that these natural history notes are a 

 jumble of independent subjects, dragged together without care, and 

 without cohesion, much as the topics chosen by the Walrus appear 

 at first sight to lack that relevancy which the Oysters had every 

 right to expect. 



The defence of the Walrus does not lie with me, but I think it 

 would be wise, before I go any further, that I should explain the plan 

 of my own paper, and indicate, as far as I may, the connecting links. 

 The food of birds is a matter of great economic importance. 

 It is also a matter which has been very imperfectly investigated 

 so far in any country. Hungar}' and German}' are far in front of 

 us, but the Hungarian Minister of Agriculture admitted as recently 

 as 1907, " that even to-day we have practically no detailed knowledge 

 concerning the food of birds." 



Our own Board of Agriculture is far behind either of the above. 

 Birds from an economic point of view may be divided into three 

 classes : — 



1. Those that are entirely useful. 



2. Those that are entirely injurious. 



3. Those that have a mixed record, doing both good and 



evil. 



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