DECREASES IN YORKSHIRE BIRDS. 
W. A. DURNFORD, M.B.O.U. 

In his interesting Presidential Address, which has recently been 
reproduced in your columns, Mr. Riley Fortune deals at some 
length with a well-worn subject, the decrease in the number of 
various species of birds. In this respect Yorkshire appears to 
be singularly unfortunate as, judging from my experience in 
Hampshire, I am inclined to think that the bird population of 
the country asa whole, both in numbers and variety, is greater 
to-day, than it was when I was a boy, between forty and fifty 
years ago, and, although I am aware that the suggestion may 
raise some criticism, I attribute this happy condition of 
things largely to the much abused preservation of Game. 
No one will deny that by the destruction of the Sparrow 
Hawk and the Magpie and above all of the domestic cat, as well 
as by putting a stop to the depredations of the birdcatchers and 
casual gunners, and by providing a supply of food in hard 
weather for many of our resident species, the gamekeeper 
proves himself the best friend of the vast majority of our British 
birds. The protection afforded by legislation has undoubtedly 
had a most beneficial effect. In old days birdsnesting was a 
recognised occupation of boyhood, and in many villages it 
a was common thing to see long. strings of blown eggs 
hanging from the ceilings of the cottages. Old Etonians 
will remember how we used to buy small bird’s eggs by the 
hundred from the cads who frequented the entrance to the 
School Yard, but to-day the scene has changed, and last 
spring I met an Eton boy on a Hampshire common who was 
intent on securing photographs of the nest and eggs of a Red- 
shank, a bird entirely unknown in that locality until within 
the last few years. Then again, the bird population will vary 
greatly with the weather, it being impossible to estimate the 
destruction caused by one really hard winter. 
To revert to Yorkshire; my experience is that while I 
agree with Mr. Fortune that large numbers of interesting species 
of what are commonly called small birds, especially insect 
feeders, are rapidly disappearing, the bird population (leaving 
house-sparrows out of the reckoning) as a whole, is larger 
thanever. May I suggest that a partial solution of the problem 
may be found so far as a large portion of the West Riding is 
concerned, .in the rapid increase in the number of Chemical 
Works of various kinds which must undoubtedly have a most 
fatal effect on insect life. In my own neighbourhood (South 
Yorkshire) such a thing as a grasshopper or a cricket is un- 
known, and it certainly would seem that, while the more robust 
species of birds such as Rooks, Peewits, Starlings, Blackbirds 
