130 OUTDOOR LIFE IN ENGLAND 



of birds indeed, with one or two exceptions, I 

 may say all of them do more good than harm. 

 They serve to rid us of innumerable pests in 

 the shape of slugs, snails, wire-worms, maggots, 

 and insects of all kinds ; it is, I believe, a well- 

 ascertained fact that, in those districts in which 

 indiscriminate war has been waged against birds 

 which were supposed to have weakened the 

 crops, the law of retaliation has exacted a heavy 

 penalty, other and worse pests having increased 

 and multiplied in proportion. A district which 

 has been denuded of birds can be neither 

 thriving nor desirable to live in ; the demoli- 

 tion of trees and hedgerows for the purpose of 

 depriving the birds of their harbourage must 

 as surely ruin a neighbourhood as mar its 

 beauty. 



The damage which caterpillars, grubs, et hoc 

 genus, are capable of inflicting on garden arid 

 field produce is, as all are aware, very consider- 

 able. I do not think that it is going too far to 

 assert that, but for the birds, there would be but 

 few crops, and vegetation generally would suffer 

 to an equal extent. Gilbert White, in his 

 ' Natural History of Selborne,' mentions an 

 instance of the oak-trees in the neighbourhood of 

 Selborne being stripped of their leaves, and the 

 fact of a flight of swifts being busily engaged in 

 hawking after the moth of the caterpillar which 

 had occasioned the damage. Markwick, in a note 

 referring to White's statement, describes a similar 



