394 INFLUENCES OF CULT-IVATION 



Starlings and Lapwings have been observed to clear in four 

 days a turnip field badly infested by the Diamond-backed 

 Moth, and so on. Could the extraordinary increase in the 

 numbers of Starlings which has taken place in Scotland since 

 the forties of last century and is still in progress, have taken 

 place, had it not been for the increasing supplies of insecti- 

 vorous food afforded them by a bounteous cultivation ? Their 

 most marked colonization of Scottish areas corresponds with 

 the "golden age" of British agriculture. 



Glance at the birds which assemble in the vineyards of 

 France, and there you will find the same factors at work. 

 It is true that Magpies, Partridges, and Fieldfares eat 

 the grapes and damage the bordering plants, but in 1916, 

 M. A. Hugues cited as birds which were attracted by the 

 insect pests of the vineyards in the neighbourhood of Nimes, 

 the Ortolan (Emberiza hortulana\ Stonechat (Pratincola 

 rubicola), Wheatear (Saxicola cenantke], European Bunting 

 (Miliaria europcea], Crested Lark (Galerida cristata), 

 Short-toed Lark (Alauda brachydactyla], Common Linnet 

 (Cannabina linota], the Warblers, the European Nightjar 

 (Caprimulga europczus], and the Tomtit (Parus major] a- 

 specially efficient pest-destroyer. These do not attack the 

 grapes, -but depend during a great part of the year entirely 

 on the secondary products of cultivation. 



From such examples we may safely assume that the soft- 

 billed insect-eaters are far more numerous in Scotland than 

 they were before man's influence began to tell ; that culti- 

 vation by augmenting their food-supply has added to the 

 numbers of Starlings, Thrushes, Blackbirds, Wrens, Robins, 

 Tits, the Warblers and others, as well as of Rooks and Black- 

 headed Gulls. Even the seed-eaters, such as the Finches, 

 have shared in the benefit, for they too feed their young upon 

 insect food. 



And what of Man himself? In the pastoral and forest 

 regions of the Old World where he depends mainly upon 

 hunting and fishing, the population, according to a recent 

 estimate by Mr George Philip, numbers only from i to 16 

 a square mile, but in well-developed agricultural regions it 

 rises from 32 to 128, and in productive regions commercially 

 developed reaches from 128 to over 516 a square mile. 

 Granted that foreign imports contribute to the sustenance of 



