418 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



the Earth or Pig Nut, Bunium Jiexuosum, and in spring and 

 summer may be seen in nocks in the dry and friable pastures 

 digging up the nuts or bulbs, and devouring them like omnivorous 

 schoolboys. 



It would appear however that the Eooks are to be slaughtered 

 wholesale, as also the Wood Pigeons. It is an open secret that 

 Cushats are now killed and poisoned illegally, and that they are 

 offered for sale at the poulterers during the entire summer. 



Be it understood that I am not against keeping the number 

 of Eooks within reasonable bounds, but I am decidedly opposed 

 to extermination and to some of the methods that have been 

 proposed for their destruction, such as watching them at breed- 

 ing time for a few days, startling and keeping the parent birds 

 from the nest with guns so that the eggs may be addled. The 

 old-fashioned practice of the landlord inviting his tenants and 

 their friends to a day or two's shooting of the young is by far 

 the most reasonable ; and if Rooks so killed are not appreciated 

 in the county I would earnestly recommend agriculturists to 

 send them to town, where, I am sure, thousands of families will 

 be glad to put them to a legitimate use. It is said, but I don't 

 attach much importance to the opinion, that the increase is at- 

 tributable to the gun license of 10s., which prevents many 

 indulging in this two days' shooting. If that be the cause it is 

 easily remedied by engaging persons to do the necessary work. 



One of the most interesting and instructive works I have ever 

 read is Mr. Theodore Wood's " Farmers' Priends and Poes," in 

 which the author, referring to the abnormal increase of Wood 

 Pigeons in Scotland, says, ''And at this we can scarcely wonder 

 when we learn, as the Rev. P. 0. Morris tell us, that upon one 

 Highland estate, in the course of three years only, no less than 

 two thousand eight hundred and forty-seven birds of prey fell 

 to the guns and traps of the gamekeepers. Interfering, after 

 his wont, with Nature's balance, man has found to his cost that 

 the slaughter of one animal brings with it as a necessary conse- 

 quence the increase of others, and that he loses in one way far 

 more than he hoped to gain in another. He preserves his game, 

 but he loses his crops ; and no one can deny that the latter are 



