and will have to be cut down. The young | forced away by an inevitable law. Not in one district alone, but everywhere, one sees the same thing. Ever more and more land thrown into grass, ever more and more machinery introduced, ever less and less need for men. A single shepherd now suffices where formerly several laborers had employment, not only for themselves but their families. Even the mechanics, the blacksmith, joiner, and wheelwright, who lived by mending the simple thrashing-machines and other gear at the neighboring steadings, find their occupation gone, and the odd man who eked out a living by doing a job here and a job there has had to emigrate for want of work. His very children, who gleaned Now it is obvious that there must be some very cogent reason for all this. Only ten or twelve years ago, before the Wild Birds Protection Act was passed, it used to be urged that English woods and fields would soon be bereft of their fauna. To some extent, no doubt, the change is to be ascribed to that measure. Yet not wholly, for a glance over the schedule will show that it has been powerless to protect rare species, such as the golden oriole, from the bird-stuffer, and those which have flourished most amazingly are not therein mentioned. There are more potent causes, one of which, no doubt, is the stringeney the wheat and barley fields, find their with which gun-licenses are issued. Of old, that graceless ne'er-do-weel, the village sportsman, exercised a considerable control over the feathered and furred population within his range. At_night_he confined himself to game; but in the daytime, when he sallied forth to prove the virtues of his ancient muzzle-loader, he was not particular what he fired at. Whatever could move, whether on foot or wings, served as a target. And on Easter Monday, Christmas, or any other holiday, he took part in shooting competitions at the village, in which small birds served instead of pigeons. The rook season was his carnival, for, although prohibited from visiting the large rookeries, there were many outlying plantations free from restriction. But the town-loafers, who are now almost the only poachers, when they make their expeditions in a dog-cart, are too intent on business to pay the slightest regard to anything but the partridges and pheasants they are in search of. labor in vain when they have to follow a low-cutting reaper and a clean-gathering horse-rake. And the birds and beasts have gained by this change. In the wide grassy solitude there is none to disturb them as they breed and rear their young. For the inhabitants of out-of-the-way ham. lets who were partly the restless outcasts of the parish, partly those who had no regular employment, and largely men with many idle days - were extremely destructive. This was owing not only to their own poaching and shooting proclivities, but they had terriers and lurchers which nearly lived in the fields, and half wild cats which did equal damage, and wholly wild boys and girls who harried the nests in the hedgerows and brought in the water-hen's eggs from the river, and the wood-pigeon's eggs from the wood, and who "speeled "the great trees and despoiled the rookeries. As these gradually move away, only the more steady and respectable classes remain, an illusThere is, however, a stronger reason tration of which I saw some time ago. I yet for the growth of wild life and the de- was staying with a friend who wished a cadence of the village poacher. Need it summer rookery destroyed. Ten years be said that it is the gradual depopulation | ago his game-keeper had to watch it on of the rural districts? Rustics are getting account of the boys from the village, who over the mad infatuation for the city which spoiled the trees with their climbing. caused so many of them a few years ago Naturally enough, he thought he had only to forsake the plough to be barmen in to send for some of these imps, and, by public houses, porters in large shops, or offering a small reward, have the nests to follow their calling in great towns. flung down. He did so, but, though sevThey have felt the pinch of hunger as un-eral came, not one could swarm up the employed, they have endured the privation trees. The art was forgotten. Is it any of strikes, and they have made acquaintance with the horror and misery of the slums. Broken-hearted and palefaced, many of them have found their way back to the hamlets they came from, to spread such accounts as to effectually destroy any remaining illusion in regard to the big wages obtainable in cities. Yet they are wonder that in these vastly changed conditions English wild life should flourish as it has never done before, should flourish until it threatens to overrun agriculture and inflict upon it losses serious enough to make the farmer look round him for a remedy? It is frequently asserted by those who have no pecuniary interest in the matter | search uproot the sprouting grain and that it is a mistake to kill the rook, inasmuch as it is so useful an aid towards ridding the land of grubs, and many controversies have arisen on this point. The belief, however, seems grounded on observations made many years ago. A rook's appetite, like that of other creatures, is adaptable. When there were fewer birds and more arable land, it is possible that he could find nearly enough worms to live upon. Latterly he has approximated to the carrion crow in his tastes, and become omnivorous. During the past year I have had occasion to test his diet in a variety of ways, and the results are surprising. That the rook will kill and eat young chickens and ducklings, that it will hunt young partridges along a hedgerow and make off with unfledged pheasants, that it will kill small birds when it can catch them, and carry off the eggs of a fowl which has made its nest away from the run, are facts of common observation. During the breeding season a rook was seen to carry off a nest-egg of earthenware to its young in the rookery close to the manor-house. If any doubt had remained as to the identity of the depredators - and town naturalists are always ready to assert that country people do not know the difference between the rook and the carrion crow - it was speedily set at rest. A steel trap baited either with eggs or dead birds was set, and the rooks easily taken. Indeed the old method of taking hawks or carrion crows by means of a trap set on the top of a high pole and baited with eggs-which used to be so effectual a quarter of a century ago-is now useless, owing to the fact that the hungry and numerous rooks take the bait so greedily as not to give the others a chance of being captured. It would seem, therefore, that the rook is rapidly developing into more of a bird of prey than he has ever been before. Yet that is not the main ground of the farmer's complaint. This is the damage done to his crops. The ravages go on from year's end to year's end. Last spring, when the seed corn was just being put in the soil, we shot great numbers, and examined their gizzards to find that not one in ten had a worm in it, while nearly all the rest were full of the barley, wheat, and oats from which the farmer expected a manifold return. Further on in the season, when the first green spear-points were being thrust through the damp mould, the rooks seeking for worms would run their bills along the tiny drills, and in their leave it to wither in the sun. During the period which intervenes between seedtime and harvest, when the land is all green with unshot corn and grass ready for the mower, and potatoes and turnips are just appearing above the ground, there is no agricultural produce to steal, and the rook is thrown almost entirely upon grubs for existence. It is then he develops his carnivorous propensities, for there are families to support, and barn-yards and game-preserves are raided. But in my opinion the rooks are often half starved in midsummer, especially if the season be a hot one. In a dry June or July, if shot when digging for food in a bit of old pasture or in a gravel pit or dry ditch, their stomachs are as empty and their bodies as lean as they are in the heart of a hard winter. But as soon as the grain begins to grow yellow, and when the sheaves are nearly ready for the leading-cart, they soon become fat and plump again. At that period the crops examined with a microscope showed in almost every case nothing but grain, and that of the finest kind. Nor is this the only tribute they exact from the harvest field. When the winter frosts come, and the grubs dive underground to escape it, and the land is all hard, they approach the stackyard and tear off the covering of the stacks, till they reach the corn, leaving, as they do so, holes, which if not stopped before the rain comes will be ruinous. At that time, too, they do incalculable mischief in the tur nip-fields, for every root which has its skin broken by their strong bills will fall a prey to the frost. In this way whole drills and fields are often destroyed. The rook is also very fond of potatoes. Some naturalists say he works along the drills only for grubs, but, if watched, he will soon be noticed making off with a tuber in his mouth, flying off to his nest with the seedpotatoes in spring, and fighting with his comrades for the best of the young ones later in the year. Taking all these things into consideration, and still giving the rook all the credit due to him for killing grubs, the farmer holds that the blackmail exacted is out of all proportion to the protection given. The lime, vitriolized bone, and other ma nures which he uses, are much more effec tive grub-destroyers than the birds, and help the crops instead of damaging them. It is not as in the days when stable ma nure with which grubs were actually carried to the land was in common use. Among the farmers and proprietors in North Northumberland there was therefore practical unanimity, when it was proposed that extraordinary measures should be taken to cope with the extraordinary multiplication of the enemy. This was the origin of the "Association for controlling the numbers of Rooks, Sparrows, and Wood-pigeons." It was a calumny to say that extermination ever was contemplated. Indeed the very names of the members, many of whom had more than a local reputation as sportsmen, offered a sufficient guarantee that no effort would be made to reduce the number of species of English birds. At a meeting held on the 15th of February of the present year, the following rules, which I give in a summarized form, were adopted. That each occupier of land be asked to pay one halfpenny per acre of arable land, the owners to be asked to subscribe as may seem best to them. (To this request a very liberal response has been made.) The association to provide ammunition free of cost, and to pay twopence for each old rook killed, and twopence per dozen for sparrows' eggs. Committees were appointed in each County Council Division to have the work carried on, and to them shot rooks and sparrows' eggs were to be taken. Owners of rookeries were to appoint their own men to shoot. It was not judged necessary to offer any reward for killing wood-pigeons, as, for obvious reasons, many proprietors had scruples about giving permission. To sum up the results as briefly as possible up to the end of August-practically the end of the year 10,650 cartridges were issued, besides powder, shot, caps, and wads for the muzzle-loaders. Claims were made and recognized for the killing of 4,263 old rooks and the destruction of 273 dozen sparrows' eggs. But this does not represent half the work done by the members. In the early portion of the year it was customary to station men at various parts of the large rookeries at night, to shoot the old birds as they came home to roost for the evening. The party was usually composed of the game-keepers from several adjacent estates, and on these occasions the proprietor provided ammunition, and no claim was made for the birds killed. Over five thousand old rooks were killed in this way. Thus, nearly ten thousand old rooks, besides young ones, have been destroyed. It can hardly be said that they are missed. To all appearance there are just as many as ever in the fields and plantations; but it VOL. LXIX. 354fi LIVING AGE. will not be possible to estimate the diminution until next breeding season, when it will be interesting to observe if the nests are rebuilt in the summer rookeries, where they have been destroyed. Some favorite rookeries, from sentimental and other reasons, have not been shot at all; probably they will next year be increased in size. What is to be noticed, however, is the very much greater shyness of those which remain. The alacrity with which a flock of old rooks would disappear from a field to which a man with a gun came, was always proverbial, but now it is a difficult matter to get within sight of them at all. The labors of the little boy employed by the farmer to scare them with a wooden clapper have been very much lightened. Why the rook war will be most closely watched in future, however, will be to notice how far it extends to other counties. That it should begin in Northumberland was only natural, but the conditions which obtain there exist more or less in all other counties. From every part there is a stream of migrants making townward and leaving a solitude in the fields. Everywhere grazing is being substituted for arable culture, and there is no prospect of this ceasing as long as corn is imported so cheaply from abroad. one place alone have the gun-licenses had the effect of practically exterminating the amateur sportsman of the village or hamlet, and reducing the number of rural as distinguished from town poachers. The vast increase of wild life, interesting as it is in itself, is still more important as a symptom of these changes. If they continue, they will result in an entire revolution in what we have hitherto considered the most salient features in English country life. Not in ANDERSON GRAHAM. From The Contemporary Review. THE OLD MISSIONARY. A NARRATIVE. BY SIR WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER, K.C.S.I. IV. THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN. THAT hot weather was one of the hottest and happiest which I spent in India. It was my first year in independent charge of a district, with the endless interests of the position intensified by youth, and still unblunted by wont. It was passed, too, in the closest intercourse with a man marked out by his talents for a brilliant career, and by the sweetness of his nature for intimate and enduring friendship. Arthur Ayliffe had held his treasury and jail in 1857 with eighty policemen, and the half-dozen sporting rifles of his district staff, against three successive bands of mutineers, each of whom outnumbered his little force tenfold. A companionship of the Bath and quick promotion were his legitimate rewards. While still a young magistrate he found himself appointed commissioner of the six western districts of the lower Ganges, stretching from the swamps of the Hugli to the forests and mountains which separate Bengal from the Central Provinces. The population of this wide tract amounted to about seven millions a great diversity of races, with the astute Hindu at the one end, and the primitive aboriginal tribes at the other. tent with the change. He went to work on his judicial duties as keenly as if he had given up any thought of higher advancement, save the humdrum promotion by seniority to the Supreme Court. The judge's house was an imposing white edifice, with pillared verandas and a flat roof, in the middle of an extensive unenclosed park dotted with ancient trees. A long avenue led across the parched sward to the judge's garden, which was separated from the main park by a public road. This garden, the work of a line of judges during a hundred years, was the one perennially green spot in our arid station. In the good old days of John Company, when the district officers freely used the jail labor, gangs of prisoners had excavated a broad, winding piece of water which expanded almost to the dignity of a lake. Its cool depths and green, shady margin formed a rustic swimming bath of singular beauty. Artificial hollows supplied moist beds for a luxuriance of gay flowers, and were screened from the hot winds by blossoming shrubs and rather closely planted trees. The mud dug out for the lake had been erected eighty years ago into a little hill, now clothed with an orange-grove, and at once suggesting the Mound in New College garden at Oxford. From the arbor on its summit one looked across the undulating country to where the sun set among the western hills. The further end of the spacious garden had been walled off for the station graveyard the first English grave having been dug for the little daughter of a judge at the end of the last century. During several years Ayliffe won golden opinions by calming down the excitement which a local rising of the hill people in 1855 had left behind. But on the passing of the famous series of codes, the Calcutta secretariat worked itself into a fervor for legislative symmetry against which he set his face. In one of his protests against applying a uniform procedure to races in widely different stages of human society, he was held to have gone beyond the decorous limits of official remonstrance. No public scandal followed. The too out spoken commissioner merely found it expedient to take furlough. On his return he was gazetted to the judgeship of the district in which I was then serving-one of the six formerly in his charge. He swallowed the pill in silence. In those days a district judgeship, which is now rightly recognized as an important post demanding a special training and no mean capacity, was held in small esteem. The district judges were for the most part heavy, elderly gentlemen, who had not made their mark in the more active branches of the administration. To this rule there were indeed brilliant exceptions. But generally speaking the abler men regarded the office as an unavoidable halt in their promotion from magistrate of a district to commissioner of a division; or as a locus penitentiæ for a commissioner who had had a difference with the government, or made a mistake. In Ayliffe's case the service felt some indignation, as the government soon afterwards found itself constrained to relax the uniformity of the codes to which he had been sacrificed. But the sympathy of his brother officers fell flat, Ayliffe himself seeming quite con In our small station each officer had a house assigned to him by custom. The judge's house, the magistrate's house, and the assistant's bungalow, were from time immemorial rented by a succession of the officers whose names they bore. Indeed, they appeared even in the survey maps under those unchangeable designations. My dwelling, the magistrate's house, was fallen into disrepair, and that year the landlord, on commencing the annual patching up, found the beams which supported the heavy flat roof completely tunnelled out by white ants. This meant four months in the hands of the workmen, and the judge kindly offered me quarters during the slow process of re-roofing. not considered quite regular for the judge and magistrate to live together, as the executive and judicial powers in a district at that time often came into collision. But no one else had a house with sufficient spare room to take me in, so my It was hens and ducks and guinea-fowls were driven over to Ayliffe's poultry-yard, and I took up my abode with my friend. It was altogether a bachelor station. None of the three civilians was a married man, the doctor was a widower, and the wife of the district superintendent of police had gone to England with her children. The hot winds set in early like a consuming fire. The large double windows stood open all night, and were shut up tight in the early morning; the heavy venetian doors outside the glass doing their best to hermetically seal the interior from the glare and heat. We had to start for our gallop by five o'clock, or not get it at all except at the risk of a sunstroke. The courts and public offices opened at seven, and closed for the day before noon. Then each man drove swiftly through the furnace of shimmering air to his darkened and silent home. A lingering bath and a languid breakfast brought the hot hours to one o'clock. The slow combustion of the suffocating afternoon was endured somehow under the punka, with the help of the endless bundles of papers in one's office box, read by chance rays which fiercely forced an entrance through every chink in the double windows of glass and wood. About six, we all met at the raquette court, whose high wall by that time cast a sufficient shadow. A couple of four-handed games (the doctor was grown too stout to 5 play) left us streaming at every pore, and marking at each step a damp footprint through our tennis shoes on the pavement. Then the delicious plunge in the swimming bath in the judge's garden! the one moment of freshness looked forward to throughout the long, exhausting day. A cheroot and an iced drink, as we lay fanned by the servants on long chairs at the top of the Mount and presently, almost in a minute, the sun had once more hidden his malignant face, and the blinding glare of day had given place to the stifling stillness of night. e 5 Our house entertained on two evenings a week, and we usually dined out two other evenings with whist afterwards, and a modest pool at loo on Saturday nights to give vent to the doctor's Irish energies. Sometimes we passed a domestic edict not to dine till the thermometer fell to ninety-five degrees, and waited till past nine o'clock without seeing the mercury sink to that point. But the life was full of compensations. In the first place, an Englishman enjoys capital health in the hot weather, if still young and not afraid of exercise, and with plenty of work. I was living, moreover, with perhaps the most charming and accomplished man in the service. Ayliffe's resources of companionship were inexhaustible. His unfailing cheerfulness and sweet courtesy of manner were in themselves sufficiently pleasant. But it was rather his quick and genuine sympathy with one's own small efforts and interests that endeared him in daily life. One somehow felt, also, in the presence of a great reserve of force. His many-colored but pithy talk made the breakfast cheroot a delightful episode in the long, hot day. After dinner, when we were alone and not reading or playing chess, we had our cane chairs taken up to the flat roof. There, in the starlight, he would pour forth those stores of incisive practical observation and flashes of perception which have since earned for him a foremost place among Indian governors and thinkers of our day. On one evening he was the experienced and sagacious administrator, with his mind full of the complex problems of Indian rule. On another, he was the philosopher sitting reflective on the river-bank, and watching with calm but friendly eyes the stream of ancient races and religions and institutions as it flowed past. In The story of the missionary's new peasant settlement interested him, and led to an intimacy between the two men. deed, the character of Trafalgar Douglas appealed in a special manner alike to the practical and the speculative side of Ayliffe's nature. The old missionary had reached a serene region beyond the perturbations of dogma. We were to find, too, during that hot weather, that his was a calm of soul which no earthly agitation could ruffle-neither the frustration of long-cherished hopes, nor the bitterness of desertion, nor sharp physical pain. For, as the scorching end of April melted into a fiery May, a great calamity befell our aged friend. It appeared that the glare and hot winds which he faced while portioning out the new village lands, must have hastened the failure of eyesight that had been going on for several years. The first day I looked in at his cottage after his return, I found him at his library table, the manuscript of his beloved dictionary spread before him, and his hand resting on the head of his little daughter, who was sitting on a stool by his side. |