MONEY IN BIRDs.
The duty and privilege of preserving birds has been raised to a national obligation by a pamphlet, published at 2d.
by the R.S.P.B. from 82 Victoria Street, and written by Professor Walter Collinge, the greatest of all authorities on the food of our birds. The brown rat alone is said to destroy £10,000,000 worth of wealth within a year. Mice are quite as destructive, in relation to corn at any rate. Neither rats nor mice decrease. Indeed, some of us think they Multiply. Now Professor Collinge has proved by his own most *scienti- fically conducted investigations that kestrels and barn' door i tawny, long-eared, short-eared and little oils all exist mainly on rats, mice, and voles. Yet game-keepers and Other country- men still wage war against them all. Two definite suggestions are made : (1) that the Ministry of Agriculture should have a special statistical branch (as in the United States) for dealing with economic ornithology, among other kindred subjects; (2) that the time has come when no section of the coMmniiity should be allowed to destroy or interfere with the wild life of
the country.
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