Year by year it may fluctuate a little according as the
winters are more or less severe, or from other causes, but on the whole
there is no increase. What, then, becomes of the enormous surplus
population annually produced? It is evident they must all die or be
killed, somehow; and as the increase is, on the average, about five to
one, it follows that, if the average number of birds of all kinds in our
islands is taken at ten millions--and this is probably far under the
mark--then about fifty millions of birds, including eggs as possible
birds, must annually die or be destroyed. Yet we see nothing, or almost
nothing, of this tremendous slaughter of the innocents going on all
around us. In severe winters a few birds are found dead, and a few
feathers or mangled remains show us where a wood-pigeon or some other
bird has been destroyed by a hawk, but no one would imagine that five
times as many birds as the total number in the country in early spring
die every year. No doubt a considerable proportion of these do not die
here but during or after migration to other countries, but others which
are bred in distant countries come here, and thus balance the account.
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