31 MARCH 1950, Page 14

Vanished Denizens

How the denizens of an area vary through the generations! I read this week an appreciation of the Fens by Charles Kingsley who picked out as typical of the district the great copper butterfly, the buzzards and the kites, all in quantity. Today buzzards are rarer than harriers, kites and great coppers wholly absent. Attempts, not wholly vain, have been made to reintroduce this splendid butterfly and its host plant, but it is not quite the same variety and certainly not in quantity. May we expect that the kite, now restored as a nesting species to Wales, will move across to the east as its numbers increase ?