go Idylls of the Field. 



The destruction of swallows has, indeed, been most 

 lamentable. The report recently presented to the 

 Zoological Society of France, after describing how the 

 birds are taken, and for what purpose they are killed, 

 urges that the French Government should interfere to 

 protect a race whose services to man are beyond all cal- 

 culation. So great has been already the havoc made 

 that there are parts of France where the swallow, 

 once numerous, is now unknown. ' If this destruction 

 goes on for a few years longer,' continues the report, 

 ' France will in ten years have no more swallows 

 except in her collections.' 



Unhappily for us, the homeward path of our 

 migrants lies through France, and thus it happens 

 that our own particular birds are killed in thousands 

 on the Mediterranean coast as they alight spent and 

 breathless on the land. 



The most destructive means employed is the 

 treacherous wire, on which the tired travellers too 

 trustfully alight, and are slain wholesale by an electric 

 discharge. 



This is a swift, and perhaps a painless death, but 

 the report alludes also to snares and even hooks. One 

 shudders to think of the little creatures fluttering in 

 agony upon a baited hook — for what ? To furnish an 

 adornment for some Parisian belle ' all gentleness, 

 mercy, and pity.' 



This is the reason why this, year so many of us miss 

 the pleasant twitter of the martins round our eaves ; 



