Ill Forest and Copse. 133 



sea crags, the shore and the stream, the niarsh and 

 the heath, have their times of avine abundance, in 

 summer or in winter, and then they are more or less 

 deserted, but the woods and shrubberies, the cop- 

 pices and timbered parks, are a haunt in summer and 

 a refuge in winter of a vast and varied bird popula- 

 tion as well as an aviary of almost perennial song! 



These splendid woods ought to be the haunt of 

 not a few raptorial birds, but unfortunately they are 

 not, as persecution has done its disastrous w^ork, and 

 Kites and Buzzards and Hobbys have been practi- 

 cally exterminated by the gamekeeper. Now the 

 Kestrel and the Sparrow-hawk are the only two that 

 are left, at least in the localities we have specified 

 above. In some of the Scottish woods the Buzzard 

 still continues to breed; the Kite is restricted to 

 one or two spots in Wales and Scotland; whilst 

 the Hobby, though still a nesting species in York- 

 shire and Derbyshire, is so rare that few observers 

 will have the good fortune to meet with it. Once 

 more we would urge our plea on behalf of these 

 three species, all of them practically harmless and 

 inoffensive birds, yet threatened with absolute exter- 

 mination if the landed proprietors will not come to 

 their assistance. An appeal to powerful land-ow-ners 

 — the owners of vast areas of woodlands — is possibly 

 more effective than protective legislation, for in their 

 hands lies all the machinery for the effectual protec- 



