200 THE WAGTAIL 



plain in a ploughed field and two or three traps set near it. The 

 edge of a manure heap does well either for taking the crows by the 

 head or leg. Of course, a keen search should be made for the nests 

 of carrion crows, and these promptly destroyed. 



HOODED CROW. This bird lives much in the same manner as 

 the carrion crow, feeding on garbage of all kinds, eggs, young birds, 

 feeble adults of both bipeds and quadrupeds on moors, preserves, 

 warrens and pastures, and, like the rook, not sparing seed-corn and 

 set-potatoes. It may be destroyed by the various methods of 

 trapping described under carrion crow. For crows in the open, as 

 on moors, a fresh sheep's head, fixed to the ground or a tree is a 

 good bait. The head may be surrounded by traps, or poison may 

 be introduced into the eyes. Attacks on seed-corn may be mitigated 

 by setting traps, baited or left to take their chance ; and attacks 

 on set-potatoes are warded off by trapping, a few traps baited and 

 judiciously placed having a good effect in a day or two. 



AQUATIC OR WATER BIRDS 



RESIDENT 

 INSECTIVOROUS AND HARMLESS 



WAGTAIL. The five species of Water Wagtails or " Dish- 

 washers " found in this country are all beneficial to arboriculture, 

 agriculture, and horticulture, because their food is for the most 

 part of a " soft " character, comprising insects of many kinds and 

 in their respective stages. For this reason alone, apart from their 

 harmlessness to crops, they deserve the strictest protection. In 

 the Wild Birds' Protection Act of 1880 they do not figure ; but in 

 several counties in England, Wales and Scotland some of the species 

 have been added to the schedule. The eggs are protected, under 

 the Act of 1894, in a few English counties. This should be extended 

 to the whole of the British Islands, and also to the young and adult 

 birds, so that their beneficial work of destroying beetles, flies, moths 

 and aphides, as well as millipedes, snails and slugs, may not be 

 impeded, particularly as by destroying fresh -water molluscs good 

 service may be done to sheep farmers and breeders in respect of 

 the liver-fluke. 



DIPPER. This bird is so uncommon and so little injurious, if 

 at all, to fish, while acting beneficially by destroying larvae of in- 

 sects, as to claim complete protection. In the north of Scotland it 

 is considered a fisher. 1 



1 In one Highland district 548 birds were destroyed in three years, a 

 reward of 6d. per head being given. 



