30 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



appeared. Vermin, once in considerable variety and plentiful, 

 have been reduced far below the natural level. In 1870 

 pole-cats were quite common throughout the midland 

 counties. Fifty years earlier than that, they were so 

 common on an estate within twenty miles of the Marble 

 Arch, that the keeper made a small fortune out of a bonus 

 on all he killed. In the accounts of an estate, which was 

 characteristic of others at the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century, the number of stoats killed in the year exceeded 

 the number of rats killed. One would infer from the lists 

 that stoats and weasels were the commonest of all animals 

 on the estate. The wild-cat survives only here and there 

 in the north of Scotland, though stuffed specimens are quite 

 common objects in the country houses. 



A near relation of the partridge, with many of its qualities, 

 has, one may say, quite disappeared. Once quail-hunting 

 was quite a favourite occupation in autumn fields in England. 

 The quail did not usually nest in England, but it was a 

 common migrant, so common that the quail-call was an 

 article of commerce. Many sportsmen have in their career 

 shot quail in Britain. Several coveys were seen throughout 

 autumn and winter even as far west as Pembrokeshire in the 

 late seventies. Those who have watched the short low flight 

 of the quail must have wondered that a bird which appears 

 tired by the effort of topping a hedgerow should be one of 

 the world's most famous migrants. The herds cover vast 

 distances ; and the armies starting for the return autumn 

 journey over the Mediterranean, south and east, are a marvel 

 worth any man's journey to watch. 



But the ground-nesting birds, whether or no they nest in 

 England, grow fewer in England. The corncrake, another 

 migrant that appears scarcely able to raise itself from the 

 ground, has almost vanished from many of its favourite 



