A Pest of the Moors
The bird is now the terror of the grouse-moor anywhere near the coast, and deliberately hunts for the young birds. Few small live things are safe from its attacks. Organised schemes for the limitation of its numbers are being devised in some northern moors. It is hateful to suggest the wisdom of destroying any bird ; but it happens from time to time that the race of harpies multiplies beyond reason to the destruction of weaker creatures; and the balance of Nature, nearly poised for the most part in and about Britain, is upset to the general discomfort. A word may be ventured on behalf of the keeper. He commits and has committed certain crimes in the killing of owls and hawks, and perhaps of stoats and weasels and foxes, which are all enemies of man's worst enemy, the rat. But it remains that the multitude of small birds in England and their safe breeding is in some measure due to the activities of the keeper. To give one example : if there were as many magpies in England as there are in France there would be as few small birds. The carrion crow is as destructive and the black-backed gull more destructive. It is no doubt possible that the existence of protected grouse-moors (often overstocked with birds) is one of the reasons for the gulls' increase. They flourish where food is plenty and because food is plenty. * * * *
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