168 FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



creature, furred or feathered, which has once made 

 a settlement, to desert its home. The knowledge 

 is certainly transmitted from generation to genera- 

 tion of wild creatures that certain districts are 

 all that they could wish for as nesting-places, also 

 for the purposes of food and shelter. Where large 

 draining operations have been carried out, these 

 have caused the birds to go somewhere else, to 

 spots where draining has not yet taken place. As 

 most of the birds that frequent swamps are more 

 or less migratory, beyond their being missed from 

 the district that has been drained, little harm is 

 done. It is wanton extermination, carried on 

 "under the rose," — there is no need to explain 

 this matter, — that one deplores. Vermin, properly 

 so called, have become very troublesome in all 

 cultivated parts of the southern counties, where 

 the order to kill the true natural police of the 

 woodlands has been given. I have heard much 

 profanity uttered because of the mischief the ver- 

 min had done. And the men smiled complacently 

 as they pocketed head-money for those very crea- 

 tures that would have helped to kill the vermin they 

 were grumbling about. 



