as Mr. MacCulloch said, many orchards have been
destroyed to make room for more profitable crops or for orchard-houses,
still there are many orchards left in the Island. I think, however,
many, if not all the cherry orchards (amongst which the Golden Orioles
apparently at one time luxuriated) are gone. There is also still a great
deal of hedgerow timber, none of it indeed very large, but in places
very thick; in fact, I could point out miles of hedges in Guernsey where
the trees, mostly elm, grow so thick together that it would be nearly
impossible to pick out a place where one could squeeze one's horse
between the trees without rubbing one's knees on one side or the other,
probably on both, against them, if one found it necessary to ride across
the country. True, on a great extent of the higher part of the Island,
all along on both sides of what is known as the Forest Road, there is
little or no hedgerow timber, the fields here being divided by low banks
with furze growing on the top of them. Furze brakes also are still
numerous, the whole of the flat land on the top of the cliffs and the
steep valleys and slopes down to the sea on the south and east side of
the Island, from Fermain Bay to Pleimont, being almost uninterrupted
wild land covered with heather, furze, and bracken; besides this wild
furze land, there are several thick furze brakes inland in different
parts of the Island. All these places seem to me to have remained almost
without change for years. The furze, however, never grows very high, as
it is cut every few years for fuel; in consequence of this, however, it
is more beautiful in blooming in the spring than if it had been allowed
several years' growth, covering the whole face of the ground above the
cliffs like a brilliant yellow carpet; but being kept so short, it is
not perhaps so convenient for nesting purposes as if it was allowed a
longer growth.

The Guernsey Bird Act, which applies to all the Islands in the
Bailiwick, and has been in force for some few years, seems to me to have
had little effect on the numbers of the sea-birds of the district,
though it includes the eggs as well as the birds, except perhaps to
increase the number of Herring Gulls and Shags (which were always
sufficiently numerous) in their old breeding-stations, and perhaps to
have added a few new breeding-stations. These two birds scarcely needed
the protection afforded by the Act, as their nests are placed amongst
very inacce