110 Mr. J. Biicklaud on 



abnormally in numbers they, too, become a pest. Hawks 

 and Owls materially assist those other agencies of Nature 

 which act as a check on the undue increase of small binls. 

 If rapacious birds were rigorously protected in this country, 

 we should have fewer complaiuts of the daniage done by 

 Sparrows. 



It is a law of Nature that the destroyer is also the 

 protector. Birds of prey, if unmolested, not only prevent 

 the over-production of small birds, but they also confer a 

 salutary benefit on each species on which they prey by 

 checking the propagation of w^eakness or disease by killing 

 off the sickly and most unfit individuals, for these are the 

 most easily seen and the most readily captured. This is 

 particularly true of game fowl, and one of the most plausible 

 hyj)otheses explanatory of the occasional outbreaks of 

 disease among Grouse has been the removal of this 

 corrective by ignorant gamekeepers. 



Yet it is my belief that nothing but a miracle performed 

 by the Lord will ever make these men see the error of their 

 ways. 



Some years ago, when lying in the sweet-smelling heather 

 on a mountain-side in Scotland, I pleaded for the life of the 

 Hawk before one of its executioners. The gamekeeper 

 listened in silence until my somewhat fervid address to the 

 jury, so to speak, was concluded. Then he said : " Ye've a 

 cold i' the luiid." F did not see the relevancy of this 

 remark, but I nodded assent. After a pause, he added : 

 " Ah, weel ; ye canna complain. The cold aye attacks the 

 weakest i)lace first.'' 



TiiH Ec'oNOMrc Valt'r of riiK Wiiitk TTkhon. 



The destruction of the \\'liit<' llcroii for its sca])idar 

 ])hunes — destruction which i> marked by the most brutal 

 savagerv — has robberl half the world <•!" a liiiil which is most 

 useful to man. Its loss to India and to (Jhina is most 

 serious. It never tonches grain, but feeds solely near 

 water and over damp ground, the bi('c(ling-places of 



