76 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



shipped eight thousand cocks for Marseilles ; in fact, the 

 bird was a drug, and offering one of the most prized of birds 

 to your friend was almost an insult. Many professional 

 native sportsmen gave up shooting as not paying for powder, 

 shot, and expenses, and on the first return of mild weather, 

 when the flights returned to their breeding grounds, many 

 might join in Dean Swift's grace, ' We've had enough.' 



" Of individual bags, it is said one gun scored one hundred 

 and sixty-eight cocks in one day ; possible from the quantity 

 and state of storm-driven birds, yet difficult to credit. Two 

 guns, however, in fifteen and a half hours' shooting, extend- 

 ing over two days, bagged just one hundred couples. Other 

 guns during a day, or even part of a day, bagged fifty and 

 sixty cocks each a feat accomplished by many ordinary 

 shots. This took place in the neighbourhood of Smyrna, 

 where the flights were more concentrated. If we consider 

 that they extended over nearly the whole of Anatolia, and 

 that thousands perished in the sea whilst crossing from the 

 mainland to the islands of Ohio and Metelin when storm- 

 driven and feeble, the destruction must have been enormous, 

 and may in no way revive hopes in your readers of future 

 plenty. Yet over a wide expanse of country many thousands 

 of birds never heard a gun ; and if to these be added the 

 apparent quantity of birds that survived the battering 

 welcome of the elements and of sportsmen, which is known, 

 it is clear that enough will return to the fens and lakes of 

 Prussia, Finland, and Northern Russia, to breed numbers 

 sufficient to partly make up for such destruction. 



" A point for discussion suggests itself, however. Do birds 

 that visit our shores, in case even of favourable wind and 

 weather, ever migrate to England ? Is it not rather those bred 

 in Norway? and Sweden which are welcomed by sportsmen at 

 home ? Flights from these latter countries will again vary 

 the line of migration according to the direction of the wind 

 at starting ; so a scarcity in England may be occasioned 

 from such a cause, and not actual decrease of the breed." 



