Notes and Queries. 119 



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Where are the Insects ]" — I am very much gratified that my 

 communication (p. 85) on the above subject has called forth a rejoinder 

 from so able a man as Prof. Newton, bat I must beg a few lines in reply, 

 and will try to be as courteous in my remarks as he has been in his. 

 First, let me assure him that I have an equal love for both birds and 

 insects, and if I were obliged to give up one, I really do not know which 

 it would be. Tie says I have exaggerated the bird population of this 

 country. 1 may have done ; tangible statistics are difficult to obtain, but 

 if we say half, or even if we reckon my calculation for one county as the 

 population of all England, the results will be astonishing enough. But 

 if a flight of goldcrests reaches from the Faroes to the Channel Islands, 

 and if a flight of jays took three days to pass Heligoland {Nat. p. 95), 

 there must be a great lot of birds somewhere. He next says that England 

 was quite full of most of the birds I name, and that they were not 

 subjected to persecution before the passing of the Bird Acts. Then what 

 are the Acts for ? I beg respectfully to difier with him on both these 

 points (I am speaking of Yorkshire), for I feel quite certain that there 

 was room for many more birds, and with the stoppage of pop-guns, the 

 continued persecution of birds of prey, and the protection of birds and 

 eggs, I do not see how the small birds can help but have increased . A s 

 to persecution, both birds and eggs were, and to some extent still are, 

 shamefully persecuted ; the birds, by every farmer's man or country lad 

 who had a gun ; — they shot them for mere sport, some not even stopping 

 to pick them up. I have heard of forty dozens of skylarks being taken 

 out of snares by one man in one day, their necks screwed, and sent to 

 market. Is this persecution ? The eggs were hunted up in hundreds by 

 schoolboys, placed upon a wall, and pelted with switches. Moisture dims 

 my eyes to think of it ; perhaps from my " want of sufficient ornitho- 

 logical knowledge." I have known gamekeepers take a stick and beat 

 down all the nests of small birds they could find. Is this persecution ] 

 But these matters cannot be remedied by Act of Parliament. What we 

 want is to teach the child, from the first day it enters the school, to be 

 kind to all living creatures ; that each one has its proper place in nature, 

 and should be respected and studied ; then nature will manage her own 

 afi'airs without the intervention of Acts of Parliament. What are the 

 birds that were rapidly being exterminated ? I suppose Prof. Newton 

 alludes to the birds at Flamborough Head, where this protection 

 originated. I happen to know something about it, and I can assure him 

 that the accounts of the birds killed there have been greatly exaggerated. 

 My father went there every season for twenty-one years before the passing 

 of the Act, and killed perhaps more birds than any one man besides. He 

 generally had with him from two to five companions with guns, and I do 

 not deny that he was perhaps the main cause of the agitation against 

 shooting. This, for my own part, I deeply regret ; a true naturalist will 

 never shoot a bird unless he really wants it. But, as a matter of fact, if 

 a working man wants a day's shooting he has as much right to have it at 



