FOREST TITHES 17 
have to be studied, to spare much future trouble to 
us and our colonies. Soon we shall be cursed with a 
plague of rats and mice that will not easily be kept 
under. 
Man considers himself the lord of creation, as 
well as of the soil he buys or inherits, but some of the 
changes he brings about are to my mind matter for 
great regret. Quite recently I have seen pheasants 
take the place of blackgame in one district I know. 
Only a few of the latter lingered there, the remnant 
of a once fairly numerous family, real natives of the 
moors, not imported birds ; but they are gone now. 
Where they once fed about the rush clumps, on the 
rush seeds, a keeper's cottage now stands, with dog- 
kennels attached. Instead of one flushing a black- 
cock, one sees a pheasant spring up, and the croon 
and pl^y of the former has given place to the drum 
and challenge of the latter. And two years ago I 
saw preparations made on a secluded side of the moor 
to turn the locality, where only wild ducks, woodcocks, 
snipe, and blackgame used to have their habitat, into 
a cover for pheasants. The job is now completed, 
and it will answer its purpose to perfection, but the 
alterations have certainly taken away some of the 
beauties of that wild hillside. 
To return, however, to our moorland tithe-takers. 
C 
