chap. X BIRD POPULATION 295 



population. There are probably as many birds, when 

 all told, in the British Isles as there were in the last 

 century. Cultivation supplies them with abundance 

 of food almost everywhere, and if you wish to find 

 the greatest possible number of birds' nest in a day, 

 there is no better place to search than a garden. 

 There are far more small birds there than in a big 

 forest, or an open moor. In a day's walk in Suther- 

 landshire you may see nothing but some Grouse, a 

 Raven or so, a Buzzard, and perhaps an Eagle. A 

 rickyard simply swarms with birds. The preservation 

 of game has led also to a preservation of Warblers. 

 They are saved from birds'-nesters, and Hawks are 

 kept down. Now that Scotch firs and larches are 

 common trees, we have more Golden-crested Wrens. 

 With the spread of plantations the Robin and the 

 Blackbird have extended their range further north. 

 The Missel Thrush is now found as far north as 

 Caithness, and though unknown in Ireland before 

 1800 is now common there, even as far west as 

 Connemara. In Scotland Chaffinches are on the 

 increase, and in many parts Starlings, never seen 

 some forty years back, are now familiar birds. 

 The Peewit, whose nests grow rarer and rarer in 

 England, breeds in greater numbers than formerly 

 in the north of Scotland. The conditions, in short, 

 have changed, and under the new conditions some 

 kinds thrive and multiply, others dwindle and vanish. 

 But new species do not come to us, except in very 

 rare cases, to replace those that pass away, the 

 tendency of civilization being to reduce more and 

 more the amount of variety upon the earth. There is 



