A Southern keeper's list of about the same period--from 1869 to
1878--shows a total of just over 8000 head. In the year that saw
the greatest destruction of hawks--nearly all sparrow-hawks and
kestrels--46 were killed. The greatest number of magpies killed in a
year was 205. Probably cats were not very carefully counted--their
numbers in different years rise from 47 to 122. Usually more than
100 squirrels were killed each year. And over 100 carrion crows were
killed yearly. But jays headed all lists in numbers sacrificed; the
largest bag of 346 was made in '78, evidently when the influence of the
breach-loader was beginning to make itself felt. Hedgehogs suffered
least persecution among the keeper's supposed enemies, only 6 going
into the bag in one year--45 was the highest hedgehog loss. Exclusive
of rats, this keeper, a Hampshire man, waged war on nine species only,
whereas the Inverness-shire keeper destroyed as vermin thirty-one
different kinds of birds and beasts. The lists make no mention of
rooks. To-day, on the Southern estate to which the list of thirty years
ago refers, not a crow or a magpie is left, and the persecution has
told heavily on the sparrow-hawks, and many another kind. The present
keeper's sport with vermin is as different to his predecessors' as
the sport of his master to his master's ancestors--to-day about 300
pheasants are bagged on this estate in the course of a big day's
shooting, instead of the 30 birds that would have been a good bag in
the olden times.
* * * * *