+--------------------+-------------------------+------------+ | |Decrease or Increase(+). | Decrease. | | +------------+------------+ 1891-1901. | | | 1871-1881. | 1881-1891. | | +--------------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Huntingdonshire | 8.29 | 5.51 | 7.04 | | Rutland | 1.55 | 3.73 | 5.59 | | Westmorland | 1.25 | +2.96 | 2.73 | | Oxfordshire | +1.27 | +3.64 | 1.70 | | Herefordshire | 3.26 | 4.02 | 1.62 | +--------------------+------------+------------+------------+ Urban and rural districts. The Welsh counties were Montgomeryshire, Cardiganshire, Flintshire, Merionethshire and Brecknockshire, the first-named showing the highest decrease, 5.08%, in 1891-1901. These counties are principally agricultural, and it is in agricultural districts elsewhere that the increase of population is slightest. But in 1871-1881 a decrease was found in the case of fifteen counties in all, and in 1881-1891 in the case of thirteen, whereas in 1891-1901, although Radnorshire, which returned a decrease previously, now returned an abnormal increase owing to the temporary employment of workmen on the construction of the Birmingham waterworks, the number fell to 10, and the average percentage also fell. This suggested some tendency to return to a state of equilibrium as between urban and rural districts. This is in a measure borne out by the movement of population in the districts classed as purely rural in 1901. In these there was an increase per cent of 14.2 in 1811-1821, which fell off to 2.8 in 1841-1851. A decrease then set in and grew from 0.2 in 1851-1861 to 0.67 in 1881-1891, but in 1891-1901 an increase, 1.95, was once more recorded. But the drain on the rural population continued heavy, for in the same purely rural area, which had a population in 1901 of 1,330,319, the excess of births over deaths was 150,437, but the actual increase of population was only 25,492, leaving a heavy loss (9.6%) to be accounted for by migration, the term used in this connexion in the general report of the Census to include movement of population to any new locality, home or foreign.