190 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



the subject. It is now becoming clear that there 

 has undoubtedly been of late years an enormous 

 increase in the numbers of the commoner kinds of 

 wild birds in this country. The protective causes 

 just mentioned have operated very powerfully in 

 favour of these birds. Their restrictive influences 

 happen also to have been supplemented to a marked 

 degree by the extension of game preserving which 

 has taken place, and which has led in some districts 

 to the wholesale extermination of the enemies of 

 the birds or of their eggs and young in the breeding 

 season. The result is forcing itself on attention in 

 many places. It is a plague of birds which is 

 attaining serious proportions. 



In many of the home counties during the fruit 

 season one wonders at the patience and endurance 

 of the farmer and grower, so hard hit in many other 

 ways, as one sees the extensive and organized service 

 of precautions which has to be undertaken against 

 the growing depredations of the birds. On the 

 protection of the strawberry crop and the bush- 

 fruit crop much labour and money have to be 

 expended. It used to be the general custom to 

 cover only wall fruit trees with nets, but it is now 

 by no means uncommon to see the large trees and 

 entire cherry orchards enveloped in a veil of netting. 

 This means the sacrifice of one year's crop as an 

 initial outlay. Without either this device or a 

 constant service to scare the birds no fruit would be 

 left on the trees. Starlings, blackbirds, and thrushes, 

 the commonest of our country birds, are the principal 

 offenders in this respect. All three kinds of birds 

 have increased enormously in numbers in the South 

 of England. Any intelligent observer who has gone 



