336 



THE NATURALIST. 



and sparrow-liawks, to attract and slaugliter tlie little migrant. The objects 

 of their pursuit are not those birds which in other countries are usually 

 selected for purposes of sport ; on the contrary, they select the little Insecti- 

 vora, the singing-birds, and particularly the nightingales. Even Swallows 

 birds generally protected by man — are taken in quantities, and often in a 

 most cruel manner. To form some approximate idea of the slaughter which 

 for weeks together is the chief delight of the population of Italy, it is suffi- 

 cient to mention that in one district on. the shores of the Lago Maggiore, the 

 number of small birds annually destroyed amounts to between 60,000 and 

 70,000 ; and that in Lombardy, in one single roccolo, 15,000 birds are very 

 often captured in a day. In the neighbourhood of Bergamo, Yerona, and 

 Brescia, several millions of birds are slaughtered every autumn, and the 

 exterminating fever rages with quite as much violence in the southern as 

 in the northern districts. In the island of Sicily, for instance, during ten 

 days in autumn, nearly 1,000,000 of larks arrive daily on the coast, and 

 immediately on their appearance are met by a continuous file-firing froni 

 hundreds of amateur sportsmen (f) who bring them down in thousands. 



This purely Italian mania has penetrated into Switzerland ; in the Canton 

 Ticino, where no prohibitory laws exist to prevent the increasing passion for 

 the barbarous sport, the inhabitants entrap on the frontiers of their Canton 

 on the St. Gotthard and the Grison mountains, as many of the songsters, 

 when they attempt to migrate, as they possibly can. We cannot prevent the 

 Italians from indulging in their absurd and barbarous amusements, but we 

 can mitigate the evil in some degree ; and it would be but consistent with 

 the proverbial good sense of the English if we were to shelter with the cegis 

 of our protection all the bird-tribe with a solicitude proportionate to the insane 

 attacks made upon them in southern Europe, and thus in some degree, no 

 matter how slight so ever it may be, reinstate the order of nature, and aid in 

 re-establishing the necessary equilibrium between the insect world and its 

 enemies. We have two ways of accomplishing our object — by favouring the 

 propagation and increase of our most useful autochthonous and sedentary birds, 

 and by affording good asylum, and places of refuge to birds of passage during 

 their summer sojourn with us. 



It is, however, preposterous to depend entirely on artificial means for a 

 complete restoration of Nature's violated laws : the force of reproduction is so 

 prodigious amongst inferior animals, that man will never be enabled to com- 

 bat alone successfully their periodic invasions. On the borders of the Rhine, 

 the Attelahus hacchus damages the vineyards, and the Anthonomus and 



