16 



THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



long grass where they coil themselves up, and have 

 always been taken in traps baited with rabbits, hares, 

 or woodpigeons. Adders are included amongst the 

 vermin to be destroyed on the marquis's property ; but 

 we believe they do not injure game. In four years and 

 a half, the sum paid on the estate of Culzean and 

 Craiglure moors, in Ayrshire, for vermin destroyed by 

 the keepers, amounted to 23 \l. \5s. Wd" 



The following is a list of the vermin of all kinds 

 killed from June 25, 1850, to November 25, 1854: 



It is certain that the wholesale destruction of animals 

 which act as a check to the undue multiplication of 

 other classes of life, cannot fail to operate in many ways 

 injuriously to the welfare of the landowner and the 

 agriculturist. A proprietor like the Marquis of Ailsa 

 may, by such an indiscriminate slaughter, secure a slight 

 increase in the number of partridges and pheasants on 

 his estates; but nature's equilibrium cannot be dis- 

 turbed with impunity, and perchance he little dreams 

 how deeply his own pocket and that of his tenants are 

 touched by such a course. The woodpigeon, the field- 



