WILD BIRD PRESERVATION.
[To THE _EDITOR OP THE "Srtcreioa."1 Sin,—While quite agreeing with your article on the above subject—for I think it is a most interesting thing to Watch birds with a powerful field-glassthere is another side to the matter, namely, the 'destruction of fruit and corn by birds. My house is close to a woo&-:what might be called a forest ; it 'runs back for about three-quarters of a mile, a grand nesting-place for birds; the result is that, unless all my fruit trees and strawberries were carefully netted in, there would be no fruit in my garden. A neighbouring farmer, who has a cherry orchard of about .fire acres, is compelled to keep a man with a gun there for nearly a month ; be also tells me that in some years he puts his loss of wheat and oats- at ten per cent., owing to the depreda- tions of birds, chiefly sparrows, but how these latter are to be got rid of without killing the rarer birds is a difficult matter. Some years ago I was in one of the vine districts of France ; scarcely a bird was to be seen; the landowners- there have found out that grapes and birds will not go together. If we are to have bird preserves, let them be some miles from arable firms, and let. the birds be regularly fed, 'so that they should not wander away and rob the
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