HERON COURT 199 



The vermin destroyed by the keepers in 1852 are thus given : 



Squirrels ..... 220 



Jackdaws ..... 210 



Woodpeckers ..... 50 



Hedgehogs . . . . . 250 



Cats ...... 52 



Stoats ...... 90 



Magpies \ 95 

 Jays J 



Hawks. 60 



Rats . . ... . 300 



Total 1327 



Or almost a head of vermin for each of game and fowl. 



In the keeper's list there is no mention made of the weasel, 

 a species of vermin in which Hampshire abounds ; they may 

 be included in the list of stoats. I am not inclined to reckon 

 the woodpecker as vermin, because, like the mole, he only haunts 

 the rotten tree for food and nesting, as the mole does the land 

 for insects, which, but for him, would devastate the crop. 1 The 

 tomtit, that gardeners pronounce to be so destructive to the 

 bud, eats not the bud, but only takes off the bloom to get at 

 the insect who had already commenced destruction. His beak 

 points to the fact that he only feeds on insects : not so the finch 

 tribe, they will eat the bud. However, let my readers take my 

 advice, and never give the gardener a gun to shoot at the alleged 

 enemies, imaginary or real, for where the bird picks off one bud, 

 the gardener, in his sport, shoots off and bruises or destroys 

 whole boughs, and is by far the greater bore of the two. 

 Nothing can be more curious nor better defined as to the food 

 of the soft and hard -billed birds, than the fact elicited by 

 changing the eggs in the nest, and controverting the mothers. 

 The food of the soft -beaked birds, such as robins, hedge- 

 sparrows, wrens, starlings, thrushes, and blackbirds will suit 



1 Certainly it is only a proof of barbarous ignorance to suspect wood- 

 peckers of doing injury to game or their eggs ED. 



