88 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



most other species above the size of a chaffinch — are 

 treated as " vermin." The case of the keeper who 

 shot all the nightingales because their singing kept 

 the pheasants awake at night sounds like a fable. But 

 it is no fable ; there are several instances of this having 

 been done, all well authenticated. 



Here is another case which came under my own eyes. 

 It is of an old heronry in a southern county, in the park 

 of a great estate about which there was some litigation 

 a few years back. On my last visit to this heronry at 

 the breeding season I found the nests hanging empty 

 and desolate in the trees near the great house, and 

 was told that the new head keeper had persuaded the 

 great nobleman who had recently come into possession 

 of the estate to allow him to kill the herons because 

 their cries frightened the pheasants. They were shot 

 on the nests after breeding began ; yet the great noble- 

 man who allowed this to be done is known to the 

 world as a humane and enlightened man, and, I hear, 

 boasts that he has never shot a bird in his life ! He 

 allowed it to be done because he wanted pheasants for 

 his sporting friends to have their shoot in October, 

 and he supposed that his keeper knew best what should 

 be done. 



Another instance, also on a great estate of a great 

 nobleman in southern England. Throughout a long 

 mid-June day I heard the sound of firing in the woods, 

 beginning at about eight o'clock in the morning and 

 lasting until dark. The shooters ranged over the whole 

 woods ; I had never, even in October, heard so much 



