INTRODUCTION. 21 



can plead exemption from the title of vermin. It lias cer- 

 tainly been proved that the mouse-eating- Kestrel will occa- 

 sionally carry off young Pheasants from the coops, but such 

 is not their rule of life, and it is hard that the offences of 

 a few individuals should seal the fate of all the members of 

 a beneficial race. Caring little indeed, during the greater part 

 of the year, even for small birds, these useful little hawks 

 prefer mice to any other food, and their elegant forms and 

 graceful evolutions, when beating over the fields in search of 

 their favourite quarry, are one of the most pleasing sights of 

 the country side. Yet how often does their variegated 

 plumage grace the keeper^s gallows ! Sad too it is to see the 

 soft feathers of Owls fluttering in the air as they hang side 

 by side with other so-called malefactors. It may safely be 

 afiirmed that no well-sustained charge of any but the rarest 

 poaching can be brought against Owls. Flying by night, 

 when young game-birds are, or ought to be, safely housed, 

 how can they, if they would, carry off young Pheasants ? A 

 tiny leveret or young rabbit may occasionally be seized, but 

 their prey is rather the rat, than which no worse vermin exists, 

 and keepers should protect them. 



Let the protection of our landed proprietors be invoked in 

 favour of these and other harmless birds. Let them instruct 

 their keepers that they shall, while keeping the egg-stealing 

 Crow family within bounds, and banishing Sparrow Hawks 

 from a too near proximity to the rearing coops, give free 

 quarters to other birds. Let them tell them that Cuckoos 

 and Nightjars are not hawks, though they look like them, 

 and that the former do not tm-n to hawks in the winter — a 

 fact about which, I believe, some uncertainty still exists 

 in Oxfordshire ; that Kingfishers are a desirable ornament to 

 their pools and streams, and that Woodpeckers are not 

 destructive to game. Above all let them prohibit the use on 

 their properties of those most deadly and destructive con- 

 trivances, pole-traps, which for every hawk caught in them 

 are answerable for the death of ten innocent birds. So shall 

 their head of game be as large as ever, their parks and woods 

 shall afford them many additional interesting sights, and they 



