Nature's Militia 317 



this, to them inhospitable land, every year on their 

 way to and from the south. Considering the way in 

 which they were received, one wonders v/hy they did 

 not choose some other route ; but the force of habit 

 seems to be too strong for them, and their ranks have 

 been thinned year after year in the most fatal manner. 

 Not even the swallows were allowed to pass un- 

 molested ; for to catch them, by floating hooks baited 

 with flies in the air, seems to have been considered a 

 particularly fascinating pastime. 



For months the chief delight of the population was 

 in catching birds, and several million were killed regu- 

 larly each autumn in the neighbourhood of Verona 

 alone. Larks are among the most useful of the 

 insect-eating birds, and so entirely harmless that 

 even the farmer has no fault to find with them. Yet 

 neither their usefulness nor their harmlessness were 

 sufficient to save them from persecution. Unluckily 

 for themselves, and we may add, for Europe, they had 

 chosen Sicily as one of the places at which to break 

 their journey, and they could hardly have done worse. 

 The SiciUans knew when to expect them, for they 

 came regularly every autumn, nearly a million arriving 

 daily for ten days, and they gave them a warm recep- 

 tion. Hundreds of the population went out to meet 

 them, armed with guns, and there was a regular 

 battue. How many were slain history does not say, 

 but the numbers must have been very great. They 

 did not die unavenged, however ; for every lark killed 

 left so many more insects to ravage the crops ; and 

 when people woke up enough to put two and two 

 together, and to connect the plagues of insects with 

 the destruction of the * militia ' which should have 



