214 president's address. 



talize their butchery by having the remains distorted into hideous 

 forms under the manipulations of the village bird-stuffer. Now, 

 the hoopoe is a regular summer visitant to other countries of 

 Europe under the same latitude, and, historically, was not un- 

 common here. Again and again the race has vainly attempted 

 to re-establish itself. It was disgusting to read last spring, week 

 after week, the accounts in our local prints of hoopoes shot here, 

 and hoopoes shot there. The hoopoe is naturally a dependant 

 upon man ; his food consists principally of the insects found in 

 dung-hills and in soft soil, for searching which his delicate long 

 bill is so admirably adapted. I know him well in his winter 

 quarters ; and there, in the streets of Cairo, or about the tents of 

 an Arab camp in the Sahara, he stalks fearlessly about, an 

 honoured and cherished guest. Why should it not be so here ? 

 Why should not his beautiful crest be seen on our lawns, and 

 about our yards, as well as in Denmark or Tunis ? Because he 

 has a gorgeous livery, and is no longer protected as formerly by 

 superstition. It would really seem that, on some points, our 

 boasted civilization has become rather barbaric. Our moors and 

 woods are infested by a class of men called gamekeepers, who 

 look upon the multiplication of pheasants as the first duty of 

 man, and the destruction of every other bird bigger than a 

 thrush, as the highest effort of human genius. Too many pro- 

 prietors are content to leave the management of their preserves 

 entirely to their keepers, and while the man believes that hedge- 

 hogs suck cows, and destroy them accordingly, the master is 

 equally credulous as to the hares devoured by white owls, and 

 the pheasants carried off to kestrel's nests. And thus every 

 creature not specially enumerated in the Game Acts is classed as 

 vermin. An instance of this barbarism fell under my notice last 

 spring. The black-headed gull must be well known by all 

 observers of nature as the most beautiful of its tribe, and who 

 has not watched the flocks of this graceful bird as they follow 

 the ploughman, diligently searching for wireworms and grubs in 

 the fresh-turned soil. There are but four breeding places of the 

 black-headed gull in Northumberland, so far as I know, but 

 one of these seems to have fallen under the keeper's ban. Near 



