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It appears to me the original framers of the game laws under- 

 stood the uncertain appearance of the migratory birds (which 

 they omitted as game, but which required a game certificate to 

 follow) better than the generality of people do at the present 

 day such are Quail, Snipe, Woodcock, and Landrail, which were 

 wisely considered, like wildfowl, as belonging to anyone on 

 whose ground they were for the time. The Quail is generally 

 considered a summer bird, and probably migrates regularly in 

 spring and autumn. The only instances I have met with it alive 

 and procured it were twice once on the 1st of January, and 

 once on the 3rd of the same month, in different years both 

 birds being very fat, and their crops full of the seeds of a weed 

 commonly called fat-hen. 



It is difficult to account for some species not increasing rapidly 

 in number. Instance the Landrail and Starling. The former 

 comes abundantly the first week in May in each year, and lays 

 from eight to ten eggs. Many undoubtedly are destroyed, but 

 still the destruction of the species here can be nothing in com- 

 parison to those reared in safety, and which quietly and imper- 

 ceptibly leave the country previous to the crops being removed 

 from the ground ; but the species does not apparently increase 

 as one would expect it to do under the circumstances. The 

 Starling comes to its regular breeding places in spring, and lays 

 about six eggs. The number destroyed certainly is nothing to be 

 compared to the increase there is in autumn, at which season you 

 meet with flocks of hundreds, but which disappear before winter, 

 and the next spring only about the ordinary number come as be- 

 fore. I fancy there must be some active agent destroying them 

 in other countries that we know nothing of, as decidedly far 

 more go away than ever return. Similar remarks might be 

 made about many of our summer visitors. Apparently the num- 

 bers that come' the following year have little reference to the 

 previous year. It would appear that so many are bred, so many 

 are required, and still the number requisite to replenish the stock 

 is always forthcoming. It is not as if England alone monopo- 

 li-rd a species in summer : the migration of each species probably, 

 and more frequently than not, extends from east to west of a 



