NATURE NOTES. 
1 66 
WILD BIRDS IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE. 
HIS is the title of a very interesting paper contributed 
by Earl Cathcart to the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society, issued on the 30th of June last. A letter from 
Sir Herbert Maxvell, M.P., in relation to the Scotch 
plague of mice, contained “ this pathetic passage:” — 
A few days ago a gamekeeper in the Stewartr)- went to examine a trap which 
he had set for hawks. He found one hawk in it, and, strange to say, its mate had 
been feeding it. No fewer than portions of twenty-two mice were discovered 
lying around it, including a number of voles, or field mice. It is alleged that the 
gamekeeper killed the hawk, although such proof was given of its being the 
farmer’s friend : 
and this moved Earl Cathcart to write to the Times a letter, 
published on l\Iay i6th, pleading for the study of “ Economic 
Ornithology : ” — 
Economic Ornithology, or the study of the inter-relation of birds and agricul- 
ture, and an investigation of the foods, habits, and migration of birds in relation 
to both insects and plants, is an untrodden and promising field that lies open for 
investigation by the English agricultural scientist. 
AVe are in this important matter far behind our cousins in the United States of 
America; their Agricultural Department in 18S5-6 established a ‘ Division of 
Ornithology,’ which, I understand, has since obtained and published, in the 
direction in question, verj’ valuable and very practical information. To cite the 
American ofScial report — ‘ By publicity it was hoped to correct the ignorance con- 
cerning injurious and beneficial effects of the common birds of the country, and 
to prevent the wholesale destruction of useful species.’ 
In the present paper, the Earl develops his scheme into “ a 
proposed little school of Agricultural Ornithology,” and gives an 
admirable summary of the evidence contained in the Report of 
the Wild Birds’ Protection Committee of the House of Com- 
mons in 1873, from which the Rev. F. O. Morris made some 
extracts in our January number, while the sparrow controversy 
was raging. This Committee took the evidence of thirty-eight 
experts, ranging from i\Ir. iMorris and Professor Newton,, of 
Cambridge, down to the cockney bird-catcher who hailed from 
Seven Dials : — men of science, farmers, market gardeners, 
including, amongst others, real out-of-door naturalists, pure and 
simple lovers of science, a barber, a bookseller, a picture dealer, 
a hair-dresser, and other tradesmen. 
The evidence was of somewhat unequal value ; but Earl Cath- 
cart questions whether any real advance has been made since in 
England in this department of science, and considers the Report- 
“ an admirable text -book of all that was then known of economic 
ornithology.” He gives in extenso a very interesting letter from 
IMiss Ormerod, Avhose work in relation to our common insects 
will be familiar to Selbornians, from which we extract the follow- 
ing passages : — 
Koting first some of the special services rendered by different kinds of birds,, 
in neutralising different kinds of insect attacks, or attacks on special crops, I think 
the following summary of observations put into my hands in 1879, by Mr. E. 
Korgate, of Spatham, Norfolk, gives useful suggestions for further amplification. 
