176 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



scarce it flourishes abundantly, as witness the rabbit in 

 Australia; if circumstances are against it nothing but 

 artificial aid can save it. A bird like the pheasant, 

 supposed to have been originally introduced, can exist 

 to-day without artificial aid, but only because we have so 

 reduced the predatory species that it has but few dangers ; 

 yet where it is truly wild it is never numerous. Hand- 

 reared birds would have very little chance in an un- 

 preserved district, even were coverts allowed to remain. 



Woods and pheasant coverts, provided for the accom- 

 modation of the sainted bird, are important factors in 

 the domestic economy of many other species; they even 

 supply refuge for the very vermin under the preserver's 

 ban. Most of these woodland inhabitants are tolerated 

 rather than encouraged, for they do no harm to game; but 

 the keeper is their unconscious guardian, their enemies 

 are his also. The unreasoning keeper spends his master's 

 time and money in protecting his worst enemy, the brown 

 rat. A large proportion of the massacred vermin subsist 

 upon small birds and mammals; kites, kestrels, owls, 

 hobbies, buzzards, and others are exceptional robbers of 

 game, but they are regular and successful hunters of rats 

 and mice. In the pellets of the bam or tawny owl are a 

 few skulls of robins, tits, and finches, but far more of the 

 troublesome house-sparrow, and the quantity of murine 

 remains is amazing. Even those species which are game 

 robbers whenever they have the chance merlin, eagle, 

 peregrine, sparrowhawk, raven, and crow kill far more 

 birds and mammals in which the keeper has no interest 

 than his own special pets. Thus, the destruction of 

 predatory species undoubtedly helps the increase of the 

 kinds preyed upon, but as species depends upon species 

 in both animal and vegetable world, any interference 

 with the normal numbers causes a dislocation which is 

 beyond all calculation. The increase of one harmless 



