240 BIRDS AND MAN 



the nests. Many a shilling had he been paid for 

 the nests he found, but in a few years the birds 

 became rare ; and he added that he had not now 

 seen one for a very long time. 



In Clark Kennedy's Birds of Berkshire and 

 BucMnghamshire we get a ghmpse of the furze 

 wren collecting business at an earlier date and 

 nearer the metropohs. In 1868 he wrote : " The 

 only locality in the two counties in which this 

 species is at all numerous, is a common in the 

 vicinity of SunninghiU, where it is found breeding 

 every summer, and from whence a person in the 

 neighbourhood obtains specimens at all times of 

 the year, with which to supply the London bird- 

 stuffers." 



When the district worked by Smithers, and 

 the neighbouring commons round Godalming, 

 where Newman in his Letters of Rusticus says 

 he had seen the "tops of the furze quite ahve 

 with these birds," had been depleted, other, 

 favourite haunts of the little doomed furze-lover 

 were visited, and for a time yielded a rich harvest. 

 In a few years the bird was practically extirpated; 

 in the sixties and seventies it was common, now 

 there are many young ornithologists with us who 



