14 STARLINGS AND LAPWINGS 



may be safely affirmed is that they were unknown in 

 the British Isles previous to the eighteenth century. 

 Anyhow, the brown rat has prevailed within the 

 space of two centuries almost to exterminate the less 

 powerful, less objectionable black rat, which swarmed 

 in all parts of this country before its arrival. Mr. 

 Millais pronounces the black rat to be practically 

 extinct in all our inland districts, though it is still to 

 be found sparingly in seaports, which he attributes to 

 fresh importation in ships from foreign ports. 



While I am on the subject of rodents, let me impart 

 to my fellow-gardeners a useful wrinkle which I picked 

 up lately from a friendly newspaper. My flower 

 garden has been infested for two seasons (ever since the 

 disappearance of a pair of stoats) by long- tailed field 

 mice. The destruction wrought by these little devils 

 among bulbs and alpine plants has been heartrending ; 

 but in the last three months their numbers have been 

 greatly reduced by the simple expedient of placing in 

 their haunts wide-mouthed jars, half-filled with water, 

 and buried so that the rims are flush with the ground- 

 surface. The mice fall in and can't get out. Some 

 hundreds have been killed in this way. 



IV 



Perhaps no wild bird has increased so much in 

 starlings numbers within living recollection as the 

 and Lap- starling. When I was a schoolboy, its pale 

 wings blue eggs were considered in the south of 

 Scotland, if not a rarity, at all events among the less 



