• Information is desired by Mr. Middleton. the young Oxford
biologist, from those who have access to estate records of good and bad game years. He hopes to find out sonic law about the periodicity of birds as well as of mammals in Britain. The Canadian records, of which he gave some rather inadequate account in a private lecture, are quite convincing in regard to certain animals of prey, such as the lynx and fox. Both they and their prey rise to a peak and having reached it collapse in the next year. There are ten-year and four-year periods for different species ; and evidence of a similar periodicity in regard to squirrels, shrews and other rodents in Britain. Do birds experience similar ups and downs ? The difficulty in Britain is the artificiality of game preserving. You may increase your partridges by
keeping down rabbits as well as ve . In some old estate books that I investigated very many years ago scores of stoats were killed and very few rats. Since then the consistent onslaught on stoats and weasels has allowed rats to Itiply beyond control. Game preserving, though it is now much more sensible than it once was, has upset. whether for good or ill, this natural and on the whole benelieent balance.
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