228 SPAKE THE SONG-BIRDS 



our farmers and gardeners would have to face if small 

 birds were indiscriminately slaughtered in this country, 

 which is their immemorial asylum in Western Europe. 

 The stock was severely depleted by the severe winter 

 of 1916-17 ; thousands of peewits and soft-billed birds 

 perished of starvation, grubs, chrysalids, and insects on 

 which they rely for provender being sealed up in the 

 frozen ground for nearly three months without losing 

 their vitality. There is no commoner or more mistaken 

 belief than that a hard winter destroys insect life. It 

 serves merely to protect them from their feathered foes. 

 When the long frost came to an end at the end of 

 March they issued forth in swarms, and there were 

 few birds to reduce their numbers. The Journal of 

 the Board of Agriculture for August 1917 supplies 

 abundant evidence of the mischief wrought in parts of 

 England. Here, for instance, is a passage in the report 

 of Mr. J. Snell, one of the Board's inspectors : 



'The caterpillars of the antler moth (Charceas graminis) 

 swarmed in June on practically all the hill pasture from 

 Derbyshire to Westmorland, migrating at the rate of 

 eighteen inches to two feet a minute. In the pools of one small 

 stream they were lying in masses from six to nine inches 

 deep. These were decaying, and the stench was very 

 noticeable. In fact, all the small streams intersecting the 

 invaded pastures were covered with a green slime due to the 

 decay of large numbers of drowned caterpillars. . . . The 

 damage to upland grass was very severe : bare, brown 

 hillsides were characteristic features in the infested parts.' 



Mr. A. C. Cole of the Board of Agriculture and Dr. A. D. 

 Imms of Manchester University report to the same 

 effect from the Peak district, and add : 



