Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/216

202 with agriculturists. Woodcocks, again, are protected, and are said to have increased, though it is open to question if their increased numbers may not be due to other causes. Cultivation banishes wild geese and snipe, but adds to the numbers of small birds, I fancy, and very probably to the number of mice. When the country was three-fourths champaign—open, unenclosed, and uncultivated—it cannot be supposed that so many grain-eating birds found sustenance as now. The subject is capable of much development. Enough, however, has been said to show that Nature at present is under artificial restraints; but her excluded creatures are for the most part ready to return if ever those restraints are removed.