20 INTRODUCTION. 



stronger since the successive passing* of the 'Wildfowl 

 Preservation Act (1876)' and the 'Wild Birds Protection 

 Acts 1S80 and 1881/ previous to which hardly any ducks 

 were bred in the county except in the few places where they 

 were closely preserved. 



It may be admissible to say a few words here upon the 

 subject of game preserving, i. e. that branch of it which 

 consists in destroying so-called winged vermin. Fortunately 

 for the naturahst and the lover of country sights and sounds, 

 this has not been carried to such a length in Oxfordshire as 

 in some other counties. To a certain extent game preserving 

 is practised in the county, chiefly in the parks and adjacent 

 woods pertaining to some of our large residential properties, 

 and also, in a lesser degree, in the surrounding country. 

 Here not only every pair of hawks which attempt to rear 

 their young are doomed to speedy destruction, but numbers 

 of harmless species are also condemned. In such places the 

 keeper's motto is but too often 'All is vermin that is not 

 game/ the result of, perhaps excusable, ignorance of the true 

 nature and habits of birds. It is no doubt almost too much 

 to expect keepers to permit a hungry brood of young Sparrow 

 Hawks to be reared in the vicinity of the Pheasant coops. 

 Still one cannot help thinking that if the coops could, during 

 the few weeks the broods are young, be watched by a boy in 

 the daytime, it would be desirable to spare a few of these 

 active little hawks for the purpose of preventing the undue 

 increase of some of our smaller birds, which form their 

 favourite prey; and also that they might, as they un- 

 doubtedly would, kill down those Partridges which, deficient 

 in strength and constitution, tend, if allowed to survive, to 

 propagate a race of weakly birds. By all means let those 

 inveterate egg-stealers, Crows, Magpies, and Rooks, be kept 

 within bounds (not exterminated). The last-named are in 

 dry seasons most destructive to eggs, and, little as the owner 

 may suspect it, the vicinity of a large Rookery is probably 

 far more inimical to the increase of Partridges than the 

 presence of a few pairs of Sparrow Hawks. With the 

 exception of those birds here named, the rest of our avifauna 



