108 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
“the probable number of pheasants and _ partridges 
destroyed in one season by the carrion crow ; and, on 
the other, reckon up how many times the keeper has 
disturbed the game by going in search of this bird, 
and thus exposed the nests of partridges and phea- 
sants to certain destruction by vermin of all kinds ; 
and then if we take into the account the many heads 
of game which the keeper had killed in his steel- 
traps and rabbit-snares, we should conclude, I think, 
that in the long run the game actually suffers more 
from the keeper, in his attempts to destroy the crow, 
than it really does from the crow itself while catering 
for its young. Indeed, I have made out the account 
myself; and, finding the balance to be against the 
keeper, I have renewed the order which I gave to 
his predecessor, never, upon any score, to persecute 
what is commonly called flying vermin.” 
In another part of the same essay he remarks :— 
‘With the exception of these two petty acts of 
depredation (z.e., devouring cherries and walnuts), 
he does very little injury to man during nine or ten 
months of the year; and if, in this period, he is to 
be called over the coals for occasionally throttling an 
unprotected leveret or astray partridge, he may fairly 
meet the accusation by a set-off against it in his 
account of millions of noxious insects destroyed by 
him. However, in the spring of the year, when he 
has a nest full of young to provide for, and when 
those young begin to give him broad hints that their 
stomachs would like something of a more solid and 
substantial nature than mere worms and caterpillars, 
