A SOUTH-COUNTRY RECORD 19 



enough, does not contain a single jay, rat, or hedge- 

 hog. 



A Southern keeper's list of about the same period 

 from 1869 to 1878 shows a total of just over 8000 



head. In the year that saw the greatest 

 A South- destruction of hawks nearly all sparrow- 

 Reeorc^ hawks and kestrels 46 were killed. The 



greatest number of magpies killed in a year 

 was 205. Probably cats were not very carefully 

 counted their numbers in different years rise from 

 47 to 122. Usually more than 100 squirrels were 

 killed each year. And over 100 carrion crows were 

 killed yearly. But jays headed all lists in numbers 

 sacrificed ; the largest bag of 346 was made in '78, 

 evidently when the influence of the breach-loader 

 was beginning to make itself felt. Hedgehogs 

 suffered least persecution among the keeper's sup- 

 posed enemies, only 6 going into the bag in one year 

 45 was the highest hedgehog loss. Exclusive of 

 rats, this keeper, a Hampshire man, waged war on 

 nine species only, whereas the Inverness-shire keeper 

 destroyed as vermin thirty-one different kinds of birds 

 and beasts. The lists make no mention of rooks. 

 To-day, on the Southern estate to which the list of 

 thirty years ago refers, not a crow or a magpie is left, 

 and the persecution has told heavily on the sparrow- 

 hawks, and many another kind. The present keeper's 

 sport with vermin is as different to his predecessors' as 



