46 FOWLS OF THE AIR 



turned and said, ' Do you know that if I were to get 

 twenty guineas for every swan I bagged, I never would 

 fire at one of them?' He looked half amused, half 

 incredulous, but many sportsmen will understand my 

 feelings. I don't want to make myself out better than 

 I am. I was bred a sportsman, and though I shoot no 

 longer, I would be ashamed to compound for sins I am 

 inclined for (fishing, for instance) by damning those I 

 have no mind for ; and the Society for the Protection 

 of Birds have done well in refraining from interference 

 with legitimate sport. 



Of what the law can do, a great deal perhaps all 

 that can be done has been done in this country. The 

 more defenceless species have profited by the low estate 

 to which game preservation has reduced birds of prey. 

 Song birds and other small kinds were never probably 

 so numerous as at the present time. But several birds 

 are still killed as ' vermin,' which it is the duty of the 

 Society to make known in their true character. The 

 kestrel dies because he is a hawk (to speak more 

 strictly, a falcon), but his chief prey is mice and beetles. 

 Owls have long enjoyed evil repute with gamekeepers, 

 because for every five hundred mice and rats he catches, 

 an owl will pick up a young pheasant or partridge, of 

 which neither, by the bye, has any business to be 

 abroad at night. Then there is another bird which 

 has suffered grievously by misnomer, being called in 

 the vulgar tongue a fern-owl, night-hawk, or goat- 

 sucker. But seeing that he is a relative of the swallows, 

 living honestly by catching cockchafers and moths, it 



