44 GAME PRESERVERS AND BIRD TRESERYERS. 



Khismat ki hhat, ' It is the will of Providence ! ' 

 exclaim the unfortunate survivors as relation 

 after relation disappears. ' It is the will of man ! ' 

 may our poor birds exclaim as their numbers 

 are thinned day by day. 



Professor Newton tells this Committee, 

 ' There is quite a healthy feehng growing that 

 hawks should not be killed ; ' and we are 

 told that the Duke of Sutherland, Mr. Cunliffe 

 Brooke, and others are carefully preserving 

 birds of prey in their large estates. Do these 

 gentlemen realise that every pair of peregrine 

 falcons, sparrow-hawks, and merlins which by 

 their orders are reared on their property, will 

 the next year destroy at the very least 1,000 

 birds, all beautiful and most of them useful to 

 man ? 



Any naturalist who considers this an ex- 

 aggerated statement will find himself in this 

 dilemma: he must assert that one of these 

 birds, say the falcon, having breakfasted soon 

 after dayhght on one day, while taking an 



