9 
true migrants only, it must be recollected that the Swallow, Chiff- 
chaff, Cuckoo, &e., species leaving us at the same portion of the year, 
are migrants so far as the countries they respectively winter in are 
concerned, 
Could acensus be taken of the smaller birds inhabiting Great Britain, 
such as Sparrows, Chaffinches, Buntings &c., and of the same birds 
frequenting a similar area on the Continent, there can be little doubt 
that the former would greatly outnumber the latter—a circum- 
stance which may be partly due to our islands affording many more 
favourable localities, and partly to the fact that our smaller birds are 
not, as a rule, killed or captured for the purposes of the table, a practice 
which prevails abroad : of these latter, the Wheatearand the Lark are 
almost the only kind that are thus utilized ; but to form an estimate 
of the numbers of the latter obtained by means of the trammel-nets 
of the birdcatcher, or of the former captured on the downs of 
Sussex and Kent, is quite impossible. The numbers of many species 
are, indeed, so great that no just estimate of the whole can be 
formed. Thus it has been computed that the Gannets frequenting 
the Bass rock cannot be less than twenty thousand ; how vast, then, 
must be the number of that species alone around our coasts, when we 
take into consideration that they are proportionally as numerous on 
Ailsa Craig and the other rocks on which they are known to breed ; 
the myriads also of the Dunlin and other strand-loving birds fre- 
quenting our bays and inlets are beyond all computation. 
Unfortunately, however, of late years vast numbers of certain 
species have been destroyed, either wantonly, or for senseless 
purposes of decoration instigated by fashion ; and to such an extent 
has this been carried that it has become necessary to enact laws for 
their protection. Whether such enactments will tend to prevent the 
wholesale and cruel destruction of Robins, Kingfishers, Chaffinches, 
&e. is yet to be seen; at all events if a law can be framed to 
put a stop to these proceedings, it will be most desirable. The 
magistrate, however, should have the power of acting according to 
his judgment when such malpractices are brought under his notice ; 
for to say that the St. Kildan (for whom, however, special excep- 
tion has been made) should not take the Fulmar or its eggs, which 
constitute almost his sole subsistence, or that the proprietor of the 
Farn Islands should not collect the down of the Eider, though it may 
interfere with the health of the birds, ar that those delicate morceaux, 
Plovers’ eggs, should not be taken, would be absurd.  Bird-catching 
should be restricted to certain seasons; the idler who spreads his nets 
for the capture of the Swallows that skim over the mead, or who 
hangs his invisible snare across the brook for the beautiful King- 
fisher to fly into, the man who professedly catches every Chaffinch 
in a lane, and the clever secamp who prowls round the edge of every 
shrubbery at daybreak for the newly arrived Nightingale, should be 
made to know that such practices are inadmissible, and that they have 
no moral right to srch a course of procedure, compared with which 
the conduct of the old Whitechapel bird-catcher is an honest calling. 
The following extract from ‘ Land and Water’ of August 29, 1868, 
