MAY 111 



rearing and shooting had been carried before the war, 

 brought that fine game-bird into so much disrepute as 

 the costly plaything of the ' idle rich ' that it is hard 

 now to get a hearing for him. The following note 

 which I have received from Colonel T. Cowper-Essex 

 may be accepted as testimony to the pheasant's good 

 offices to the forester. 



'When shooting over moorland containing some larch 

 plantations a few miles from Windermere on 20th August 

 1911, I found the larch trees were swarming with the sawfly 

 caterpillar to such an extent that a hatful could easily have 

 been gathered from any one tree. In late September or 

 early October I found the carpet of larch needles under the 

 trees in the affected parts of these plantations had been com- 

 pletely turned over and searched by some large bird. I was 

 uncertain whether to attribute this to pheasants or black- 

 game, both of which are in these woods : but later I got 

 evidence that it was the work of pheasants, as the agent of 

 a neighbouring estate told me that he had had the crops 

 of some pheasants opened, and that they were found to be 

 full of sawfly cocoons.' 



XIX 



Of all the voices of the countryside there is none 

 that confirms so confidently the coming of gummer 

 summer as those of the cuckoo and the corn- BirdB 

 crake. The note of the cuckoo is inseparably associated 

 with dewy May mornings, floating clouds, and the 

 blaze and fragrance of whin-blossom ; that of the corn- 

 crake with balmy gloaming, springing corn, and deep 

 flowery meadows. 



The cuckoo's life history would require a whole 



