322 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
thirty years ago. Some other small birds, amongst which are the 
willow wren and gold crest, are more plentiful at the present day 
than they were fifty years since, to be accounted for perhaps from 
the wholesale destruction of certain rapacious birds by game pre- 
servers, and the spread of plantations supplying them with addi- 
tional food and shelter. To all who love Nature, the increase of 
such pretty species must be a subject of gratification; but, the con- 
sideration that it has probably in a measure been brought about by» 
the destruction of other interesting and, from some points of 
view, very valuable birds, must cause regret. Numerous are the 
complaints we now hear from agriculturists of extensive injury 
done to the clovers and other fodder plants in winter and early 
spring by flocks of wood-pigeons, as also of great loss consequent 
on the destruction of various products by hosts of rats, infesting 
the homesteads, granaries, and’ even the very fields. It requires 
no clearness of vision to see how this has come to pass if we bear 
in mind that during the past fifty years countless numbers of 
hawks, owls, pies, and weasels have been destroyed by game pre- 
servers ; so that some species have been quite exterminated, and 
others greatly reduced in numbers. Should any Plymouth orni- 
thologist now be so fortunate as to obtain a sight of a peregrine 
falcon sailing over one of our cliffs he would think the fact worth 
recording in the next number of the “ Zoologist,” whereas Montagu 
in his day was able to say, “This species appears less plentiful 
with us than it really is, there not being any part of our coast 
from north to south where the cliffs rise to the height of three or 
four hundred feet but they are found scattered during the breeding 
season. The so-called common buzzard, too, is now rarely met 
with in our neighbourhood, so that I consider it quite an event in 
my “ornithological experiences” to have had one day last summer 
the pleasure of seeing a bird of this species performing graceful 
evolutions high in air whilst harassed by a kestrel. 
The lessened numbers of the order Corvidw may have had more 
to do with the increase of some of the smaller birds.than has the 
destruction of so many of the Falconide, for it cannot be denied 
that some of the first, such as the magpie and jay, are great 
plunderers of the eggs and young of other species; and the jay may 
be regarded as one of nature’s most effectual checks on an undue 
multiplication of such species as thrushes and finches, for when a 
pair have a brood of five or six hungry nestlings to provide for, no 
