HAUNTS OF THE GEALL.E. 87 



the dwellings of man, but are among the most familiar of 

 the feathered tribes, frequenting the streets of cities, and 

 reposing and nestling on the house-tops with more apparent 

 confidence than house-sparrows with us. In those places, 

 they are esteemed and protected on account of their services 

 as scavengers, and in the destruction of noxious creatures ; 

 and though they are not very elegant in their forms, they 

 impart a peculiar and not an uninteresting character to the 

 place ; but it is not a British character. 



The British grallse, whether resident or migrant, are all, 

 with the exception of some of the stragglers, birds of the 

 wastes and uncultivated places ; and birds which harmonize 

 less and less with the country in proportion as improvement 

 extends over it. Hence, the species are less numerous with 

 us now than they were in former times ; and of many of 

 those that remain, the numbers are gradually lessening. 

 There is, however, little chance or danger of the extinction of 

 any of the present species. The sea-beaches, the fens, the 

 moors, the upland marshes, and the banks of the rivers, will 

 continue to afford them retirement and food, though several 

 of them do get gradually more out of the range of general 

 observation. 



But though the grallse are, in their general haunts, thus 

 in so far associated with wildness and infertility, they are 

 not less interesting than those birds which are the concomi- 

 tants of improvement and fertility, and which multiply as 

 these extend. In some respects they are even more interest- 

 ing than these. They give life to those places which man 

 neglects ; and (as they are almost all preyers upon plant- 

 destroying animals) they preserve vegetation upon places 

 where otherwise it would perish, and the consequences to the 

 general climate of the country would be much more serious 

 than those who do not reflect upon those matters in their 

 connexion would be apt to suppose. There are many parts 



