The Pigeon Again It is a tiresome business to have
to return, year after year, to the same subject, but it must now be three or four years since we were promised action against the rabbit pest, and two years since we were told to prepare for a war on the wood-pigeon; yet the rabbit and the pigeon still remain, with the rat, the great agricultural pests of our time. A corre- spondent writes from the Isle of Wight that her tame fantails are continually menaced and killed by hawks, and asks for a temedy. I am in complete sympathy with her, but I cannot help wishing that our trouble were an excess of hawks rather than an excess of pigeons. Thanks to the pigeon, the grow- ing of winter green vegetables has become a farce. This year the N.F.U. is again organising action against the pigeon at its various branches, but I feel that a correspondent of The Farmers' Weekly is right when he says that methods of pigeon destruction such as evening shoots are completely futile. The mass attack on the pigeon only makes that crafty emblem of peace more crafty. A systematic and regular attack by an expert pigeon-shot working over decoys at feeding time is suggested as the only satisfactory way of keeping down a pest that grows a more serious menace to agriculture every year.
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