46 The Field Naturalist 's Quarterly Feb. 



sufficient to say that in a hotel adjoining the Leicestershire 

 cricket-ground there was to be seen in May 1899 a case 

 of seventy-five Kingfishers, all shot during the preceding 

 six months, their proprietor boasting of them as a fine 

 winter's bag. 



We can now sum up the results of the facts mentioned. 

 About six species resident in comparatively recent times 

 have disappeared, and half a dozen others have become con- 

 siderably scarcer. Among these dozen or so species are 

 naturally the more interesting and striking forms. Such 

 a result is inevitable from the march of humanity, armed 

 with weapons of precision. Even the advancement of know- 

 ledge is used as a pretext for the destruction of rare birds, 

 and the ineradicable amov habendi causes many a priceless 

 nest to be rifled. 



Nearly a score of species have, on the other hand, become 

 commoner, some strikingly so. Some of the Gulls, for in- 

 stance, are increasing their range and follow the floods in the 

 Welland Valley in large numbers. The success which has 

 attended the introduction of two or three species encourages 

 further experiments in the same direction. 



The causes of the decrease of species, where they have 

 decreased, may be traced to (1) drainage, high farming, 

 and the cultivation of waste lands ; (2) the destruction of 

 birds supposed to be prejudicial to game; (3) the sportsman 

 and the lout with a gun, who both say, " What a divine 

 day ! let us go and shoot something " ; (4) the ornithologist, 

 who wants skins and specimens, and to the egg-collector, 

 who wants British-taken eggs ; (5) the destruction of migra- 

 tory species by our own bird-catchers at Brighton, Beachy 

 Head, and elsewhere, and more especially by foreign bird 

 exterminators at Heligoland, in Italy, Sicily, and France. 



It must be remembered that what is detrimental to some 

 species of birds is beneficial to others. For instance, game- 

 preserving kills off our finer and more conspicuous birds, but 

 it conserves and shelters our Warblers in two ways — by giving 

 them quiet precincts, where trespassers are forbidden to 

 enter, for their nesting operations, and by destroying their 

 ruthless feathered enemies. Consequently Chaffinches, Lin- 

 nets, Yellow-Hammers, Whitethroats, Willow- Wrens, and 



