1 78 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



ideas about cutting down timber and plashing hedges to regula- 

 tion height took possession of the rustic minds, and the face of 

 the country having thus been transformed into the neatest 

 series of " clean " fields that can be found even in that agricul- 

 tural county, the birds departed along with summer greenery 

 and May hawthorn blossoms. Owing to the destruction of the 

 thistles, ragwort, &c., on whose seeds the goldfinch loves to 

 feed, this bird is now very rarely seen in the district. As much 

 corn was planted, it naturally had to be " tented," so the 

 nearest urchin who was too lazy to go to school and too small 

 to drive a plough was placed amongst it armed with a rusty 

 fowling-piece, and strict injunctions were given him to shoot at 

 every feather he could see. Consequently all the larger birds 

 were massacred and the smaller ones frightened out of the 

 district. As their nesting coverts in the high hedges had been 

 cut away, there was no temptation for the latter to return. 

 Beyond a few flights of larks and peewits, and the saucy spar- 

 rows of the stackyards, a bird-lover may here wander through 

 silent fields without being gladdened by the presence of his 

 feathered friends. Even sparrows are slain by hundreds in 

 some benighted parishes under the auspices of the local sparrow 

 club, or the magnates of the vestry meeting. Doubtless such 

 short-sighted wisdom will bring its own punishment. Increased 

 insect ravages may compel the next generation to atone their 

 fathers' misdeeds by importing the very birds which the latter 

 so ruthlessly destroyed. In these favoured regions, however, 

 lie the farmers' Elysian fields " Everything so quiet ! none o' 

 them noisy buds! small fences for 'unting, and no trees to 

 shade the wuts ! " 



Another cause which, if it has not diminished the numbers 

 of the commoner birds, has decimated all the rarer kinds, 

 springs from what in some points has conferred a great impulse 

 on modern ornithology. Numerous publications on natural 

 history carefully register all the more uncommon birds that are 



