NATURE AND THE GAMEKEEPER. 193 



woods, but roam cornfields and meadows. Certainly, 

 if man has tried to exterminate any creature, he has 

 tried his hardest to get rid of these two, and has failed. 

 It is even questionable whether their numbers show 

 any appreciable diminution. Kept down to the utmost 

 in one place, they flourish in another. Kestrel and 

 sparrowhawk form a parallel among winged creatures. 

 These two hawks have been shot, trapped, and their 

 eggs destroyed unsparingly: they remain numerous 

 just the same. Neither of them choose inaccessible 

 places for their eyries; neither of them rear large 

 broods. The sparrowhawk makes a nest in a tree, 

 often in firs ; the kestrel lays in old rooks', crows', or 

 magpies' nests. Both the parents are often shot on or 

 near the nest, and the eggs broken. Sometimes the 

 young are permitted to grow large enough to fly, and 

 are then shot down after the manner of rook-shooting. 

 Nevertheless kestrels are common, and sparrowhawks, 

 if not quite so numerous, are in no degree uncommon. 

 Perhaps the places of those killed are supplied by 

 birds from the great woods, moors, and mountains of 

 the north. 



A third instance is the crow. Hated by all game- 

 keepers and sportsmen, by farmers, and every one who 

 has anything to do with country life, the crow sur- 

 vives. Cruel tyrant as he is to every creature smaller 

 than himself, not a voice is raised in his favour. 

 Yet crows exist in considerable numbers. Shot off in 

 some places, they are recruited again from others where 

 there is less game preservation. The case of the crow, 

 however, is less striking than that of the two hawks ; 

 because the crow is a cosmopolitan bird, and if every 



o 



