158 By Leafy Ways. 



without hope of reprieve. He knows how he would 

 miss from the landscape the bold colouring of the 

 magpie, the bright plumage of the jay, the marvellous 

 poise of the kestrel ; and knowing that, in spite of all 

 that may be said to their discredit, their virtues are 

 much greater than their vices that some are quite 

 innocent, and that even the crow is not so black as he 

 is painted he, at least, would let the hawk go by and 

 spare even the magpie from its doom. 



It is true that the teaching of the village school and 

 even the machinery of the common law have done 

 much in their defence, but there are still whole races 

 the birds of prey, for instance which are more or 

 less under the ban. 



The keeper is for the most part beyond the reach 

 of softening influences. There rot upon his gallows 

 the remains not only of the sparrow-hawk and the 

 magpie, the owl and the kestrel, but even of the 

 woodpecker and the nightjar birds capable of doing 

 rather less harm to the game than the Babes in the 

 Wood. 



The royal eagle is indeed no longer ruthlessly shot 

 or trapped wherever he may appear ; in some of the 

 deer forests protection is even afforded him. But to 

 the buzzard and the peregrine no such mercy is 

 shown; and those which are not slaughtered in the 

 supposed interests of game-preserving, become the 

 prey of the dealer and the collector. The latter has 

 much to answer for. Although rewards are no longer 



