brocoli for the early London market, to be replaced by a crop of
potatoes at the end of the summer. The trees are cut down to let in the
sun. Since the people have taken to gin-drinking, cider is out of favour
and the orchards destroyed. The hedges are levelled to gain a few
perches of ground, and replaced in many places by stone walls; the furze
brakes rooted up, and the whole aspect and nature of the country
changed. Is it to be wondered at that those kinds of birds that love
shelter and quiet have deserted us? You know, too, how every bird--from
the Wren to the Eagle--is popped at as soon as it shows itself, in
places where there are no game laws and every man allowed to carry a
gun."

This interesting description of the changes--agricultural and
otherwise--which have taken place in the Islands, especially Guernsey,
during the last fifty or sixty years (for which I have to offer Mr.
MacCulloch my best thanks), gives a very good general idea of many of
the alterations that have taken place in the face of the country during
the period above mentioned; but does not by any means exhaust them, as
no mention is made of the immense increase of orchard-houses in all
parts of Guernsey, which has been so great that I may fairly say that
within the last few years miles of glasshouses have been built in
Guernsey alone: these have been built mostly for the purpose of growing
grapes for the London market. These orchard-houses have, to a certain
extent, taken the place of ordinary orchards and gardens, which have
been rooted up and destroyed to make place for this enormous extent of
glass. But what appeared to me to have made the greatest change, and has
probably had more effect on the Ornithology of the Island, especially of
that part known as the Vale, is the enormous number of granite quarries
which are being worked there (luckily the beautiful cliffs have hitherto
escaped the granite in those parts, probably not being so good); but in