THE BALANCE OF NATURE. 2o 



we find one gentleman telling this Committee, 

 ' Keepers think everything but game is to be 

 murdered.' Another in almost the same words : 

 'An average gamekeeper kills everything as ver- 

 min except what is in the game list ; ' while Mr. 

 Stevenson actually gravely tells the Committee 

 that ' a Norfolk gamekeeper told a friend of his 

 he shoots the nightingales and takes their eggs 

 because they sing so loud that they keep his 

 pheasants awake at night.' We cannot help 

 fancying that this gamekeeper was amusing him- 

 self a httle at the expense of a gentleman who 

 did not know much about pheasants, and he 

 must be not a little surprised to see his joke 

 given as evidence to a Committee of the House 

 of Commons. 



We propose to show what the creatiu-es are 

 which keepers destroy, and why they destroy 

 them. So far from ' murdering everything but 

 game,' it will be found that the sorts of birds 

 they kill can be counted on their fingers, and 

 their numbers in scores, while the sorts of birds 



