BIRD LIFE IN SOUTH DEVON.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] Sue,—My memory goes back some threescore and ten years, and I notice the writer in the Spectator of October 22nd describes very closely what has occurred hereabout on the S. Devon coast.
I am not able to assert that peregrines and buzzards have come back, but they are here now : my first intimation was a- peregrine's nest some ten years ago, when buzzard hawks were also present. Other newcomers during the last forty years include a colony of herons. Sheldrakes also, which formerly visited us occasionally in winter, now breed here, and are a handsome addition to our " bird life." Some years ago I saw a pair of "butcher birds," and espied the hen the following summer; their arrangements must have been disturbed, as I have not seen them since. I have attributed the change, rightly or wrongly, to the Wild Birds Protection Act.
I am sorry to find " a fly in the ointment." I know a head- land which used to be frequented by the " Cornish chuff," it is the only place where I ever found this bird; but I have missed hint for twenty years. He is said to " love solitude," and his former haunt is invaded by gulls. In my view there are vastly too many gulls, and we could well spare a great number of them. A few years ago a price per head was paid for cormorants and shags; a great reduction in the numbers of these voracious fishers resulted. Liberty to shoot gulls would have some effect. In this neighbourhood rabbit trap- ping accounts for the scanty show of partridge; gins are, ille- gally, set in the open, and all sorts run into them. Rabbits have increased enormously, tens of thousands are annually sent off by rail to populous places; but, curious to relate, the man with a gun and dog gets fewer shots than fell to him when stoats and weasels kept down the number of rabbits, when there were few on the land. In those days the dog found them in gorse, tufts of grass, and hedgerows; now they abide underground. Is this because the trapper has exterminated stoat and weasel? It would be interesting to know if " bunny " has changed his habits in other parts of the country.—I am,
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