Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixvi. (192 1) 15 



upset natural balance. Many of these men were drafted into 

 the army, artificial rearing was almost entirely neglected, and 

 much of the seasonal shooting or sport was discontinued. 

 Immediately a change was noticeable ; predatory animals such 

 as hawks, owls, crows, magpies, jays, stoats, weasels, and 

 foxes increased; rabbits became a nuisance in spite of con- 

 trolled prices, rats were a perfect plague, and small birds 

 decreased. Unfortunately the issue was confused by a natural 

 catastrophe, the abnormal winter and spring of 1916-17, when 

 so many birds suffered from starvation, and in direct conse- 

 quence insect life had a chance to increase. If, however, some 

 measure of the decrease in bird life was due to the abundance 

 of predatory creatures, which I believe it was, we can see why 

 the wheat bulb-fly increased, and why the forest trees for 

 several years have suffered defoliation by the larvae of species 

 of Hibernia and Cheimatohia, and other insects. Possibly 

 too it was a factor in the abnormal invasion of the upland 

 pastures by the larvae of the antler moth. 



One remarkable, significant, and in some quarters at least 

 unexpected result is that the stock of wild pheasants, that is 

 to say of birds which nested and reared their young without 

 artificial aid, is greater than before the war. It has often been 

 asserted that the pheasant, an introduced bird, could not exist 

 without protection ; I believe that it is so firmly established as 

 a colonist that it has reached that position when it is fitted to 

 maintain its own natural balance. The wild birds not only 

 could exist, but actually benefited by the absence of competi- 

 tion with their hand-reared brethren ; there was no longer 

 over-stocking. 



Game preservation, a very ancient source of interference, 

 has altered the constituents of the fauna more than most 

 agencies, the cultivation of land and domestication of animals 

 excepted ; it has too often altered it for the benefit of the 

 minority. Yet we must face the fact that the destruction of 

 predatory creatures and the provision of shelters for game — 

 woodlands, coverts and moors — have proved advantageous to 

 innumerable creatures, mammals, birds and insects for 

 example, which were innocuous to game or beneath the notice 

 of its guardians. We have no vivid faunal picture of our 

 land before the days of forest and game laws, but we can 

 imagine what it was like from analogy. A friend of mine 

 who served as a doctor during the East African campaign was 

 much struck by the apparent absence of small birds and the 

 visible abundance of raptorial ^ecies. He argued that there 

 must be a wealth of bird life to feed all these carnivorous- 



