THE REARED PHEASANT 239 



tawny and long-eared owls are proved — if 

 occasional — sinners in regard to young 

 pheasants ; only the barn owl has a clean 

 bill of health, the utmost that can be 

 brought against him being the charge of 

 ' conduct calculated to create despondency 

 and alarm' — in the wording of the Army 

 Act — among the young pheasants going 

 to roost, by hunting near by. Now, where 

 foxes are many, one of the keeper's chief 

 anxieties is to induce his young pheasants 

 to roost in the trees, and when he finds 

 that marauding owls — although actively 

 engaged in the laudable business of killing 

 mice — have incidentally driven all his 

 birds down to pass the rest of the night 

 on the ground, his annoyance, passive or 

 active, can at least be readily understood, 

 if not condoned. 



The truth is that from countenancing 

 indiscriminate slaughter we are now in 

 danger of reaching the other extreme by 

 commanding equally indiscriminate pre- 

 servation. Take the case of the kestrel ; 

 for the last ten years this falcon has been 



