368 INFLUENCES OF CULTIVATION 



who bought or sold Quails, and brought about in 1685 the 

 institution of a close season from the first day of Lent till 

 the first day of July. Thirteen years later, still dwindling 

 numbers caused the passing of a new Act, which on the 

 ground that Quails had become scarce, forbade anyone to 

 make use of setting dogs with nets for taking them during 

 the following seven years under pain of 40 merks Scots. 

 Nowadays the Quail is a scarce bird, though its numbers 

 vary from year to year, and as a regular nester it has all but 

 disappeared. The intense cultivation of the valleys and the 

 invention of close-mowing hay-cutters and reapers, which 

 destroy birds and nests as well, has cut off the last chance 

 of survival of the Quail in Scotland. The implication of 

 mechanical reapers in this extermination is tolerably clear. 

 One exception has to be made to the statement that the 

 Quail has ceased to breed regularly in Scotland. In Shet- 

 land it nests more frequently than elsewhere in Scotland, 

 and why? It seems reasonable to associate its persistence 

 there with the fact that in the fields of Shetland the 

 "reaper" is unknown. There, after the manner of the old 

 days, the scythe or the sickle still mows the waving corn, 

 and the Quail reaps the benefit of such peace as a primitive 

 cultivation gives. 



The CORNCRAKE (Crex crex] seems to be following in 

 the trail of its relative. My own impression is that its call 

 is now less common in the Scottish valleys I know best. 

 Bird of the cultivated land though it be, experience has 

 already taught many of its kind to desert the cultivated area 

 and nest in the rough corners of the fields. It may be 

 that the field-nesters are being gradually eliminated by the 

 perfection of the modern reaping-machine. 



Even LAPWINGS, wearied of the disturbances of cultiva- 

 tion, are said more and more to be seeking safe nesting-places 

 on" the wild slopes of the moors, for the Peewit, homely bird 

 as it is, is sensitive to repeated interference, and seldom 

 remains in a place where its eggs are destroyed time and 

 again, either by agricultural operations or by egg-collectors. 



These are simple illustrations of the restrictive effects of 

 cultivation, but perhaps the extension of arable land or the 

 consequent decrease of the larger members of the wild fauna 

 have had almost as much to do with the gradual disappearance 



