CHAPTER VI. 



ENEMIES TO WOODLANDS AND 

 NURSERIES. 



Among the ]\Iammalia that are specially injurious to wood- 

 lands and nurseries several distinct classes may be noted — 

 viz. : Large Game, including red-deer, fallow-deer, and roe- 

 deer ] Ground Game, including hares and rabbits ; and 

 Vermin, including the smaller Rodentia, squirrels, dormice, 

 rats, and voles, as well as the mole, badger, and weasel, some 

 of which, however, are at the same time of great assistance 

 in keeping the other more injurious kinds from increasing 

 too rapidl}^ 



The damage done by game of different kinds is by no 

 means confined to the woodlands, which serve as their covers 

 and breeding-places. Owing to their quietness, and to the 

 fact that under the existing laws they may not be invaded 

 by the farmer, woodland tracts only too frequently 'serve 

 principally as game preserves, from which deer, hares, 

 rabbits, pheasants, partridges, pigeons, etc., sally forth at 

 their feeding-times, committing considerable havoc on 

 the crops of various kinds coming within their reach. 

 The ravages of this nature that are directly permitted, and 

 even encouraged, by the landlords, are now distinctly of a 

 nature and an extent which call for some notice from the 

 Royal Commission at present sitting (1894), with a view to 

 the framing of proposals for the practical alleviation of the 

 existing agricultural depression and distress. For so long 

 as our British woodlands rank only, or principally, as game 

 preserves, it stands to reason that tenant-farmers, and the 



