144 Countrymen's Nature Lore 



often applied to the blackheaded gull, as white- 

 throat is in parts of Scotland to the weasel. 



Much as the pleasure of shooting tempts game- 

 keepers to destroy most large wild birds in their 

 covers, the incentive of money prizes in wrongly 

 managed rat and sparrow clubs does much to per- 

 vert the countryman's attitude towards the smaller 

 kinds. When these clubs include among the species 

 for which blood-money is given thrushes, chaf- 

 finches, skylarks, and other birds of which the mis- 

 chievousness is at least highly doubtful, they tempt 

 the village boy to regard all small birds as fair 

 game. Otherwise, the distinctions between the 

 friends and foes of the gardener and farmer are 

 better grasped than most other points in wild life. 

 Observation has been sharpened by a practical 

 interest which is absent in the consideration of 

 such questions as whether eels grow out of horse- 

 hairs dropped into farm ponds, or whether hares 

 change sexes in alternate years. 



Such fantastic beliefs have been dying a natural 

 death for many years past, though probably old 

 people are to be found in many parts of the country 

 who still cherish them. But knowledge gains 

 ground very slowly in cases when ignorance is 

 allied with fear. So long as every reptile or insect 

 suspected of powers of biting or stinging is treated 

 to the flat of a spade, it is difficult for the object 

 of suspicion to establish its innocence. The rustic 

 has little of the adventurous scientific spirit which 

 dares injury or infection on behalf of the advance- 

 ment of knowledge. When he sees a grass-snake 



