PREFACE. IX 



houses they baked their own bread and requh'ed 

 the furze for fuel. Now all that is changed. The 

 meadows are drained and planted with brocoli for 

 the early London market, to be replaced by a crop 

 of potatoes at the end of the summer. The trees 

 are cut down to let in the sun. Since the people 

 have taken to gin-drinking, cider is out of favour 

 and the orchards destroyed. The hedges are 

 levelled to gain a few perches of ground, and re- 

 placed in many places by stone walls ; the furze 

 brakes rooted up, and the whole aspect and nature 

 of the country changed. Is it to be wondered at 

 that those kinds of birds that love shelter and quiet 

 have deserted us ? You know, too, how every bird 

 — from the Wren to the Eagle — is popped at as 

 soon as it shows itself, in places where there are 

 no game laws and every man allowed to carry a 

 gun." 



This interesting description of the changes — 

 agricultural and otherwise — which have taken place 

 in the Islands, especially Guernsey, during the 

 last fifty or sixty years (for which I have to offer 

 Mr. MacCulloch my best thanks), gives a very good 

 general idea of many of the alterations that have 

 taken place in the face of the country during the 

 period above mentioned ; but does not by any means 

 exhaust them, as no mention is made of the 

 immense increase of orchard-houses in all parts of 

 Guernsey, which has been so great that I may fairly 



