VANISHING BIIIDF!.
Some curious examples of the ups and downs, not of rodents, but of birds, reach me from the west coast of Ireland. One of the once common birds that ]has almost disappeared from Western Ireland is the yellow hammer. Now the othet day Mr. J. C. Squire, in a short prefaCe to a book on natural history, averred that the yellow hammer had become a rare bird—at any rate in the south-west of England. Is this really so ? In my experience yellow hammers have deserted the roadsides that they used to haunt with surprising fidelity; and it is not altogether improbable that they enjoyed the dusty surface and perhaps regret the absence of-the" horse. But yellow hammeri are still very plentiful along the -hedge- rows, at any rate in the Home Counties ; and there is, I should say, an increase in their near cousin$ the-little observed; but not uncommon cirl bunting. In western- Ireland in winter, it is 'said that redpoles and golden-crested wrens have filled the place of the lost buntings, and that all classes of hawks and owls have multiplied.
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