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been close students of bird life. A week or two ago we were 

 being informed of innumerable places — manj'in Surrey — where 

 this sweetest of songsters may be heard, but at the same time 

 I found it authoritatively stated that the number of nightin- 

 gales that annually visit our shores to bring up their young has 

 been a steadily decreasing quantity for several years. But 

 more disquieting still is one of the reasons advanced. The 

 parts of England specially frequented by these summer visitors 

 are those where fruit growing is one of the staple industries, 

 and it is in these districts that sparrow clubs have become 

 vigorous in the last few years. In many cases the heads only 

 of birds are kept for counting purposes, and, unhappily for the 

 musical brightness of the country side, the brown heads of 

 various warblers easily pass muster among dozens of the com- 

 luon sparrow. Thus it happens that the whoUj' insectivorous 

 singing birds are yearly sacrificed in great numbers. 



One cannot of course vouch for the complete 

 accuracy of this particular item, but it seems on the 

 face of it to be worth some attention. 



IS EGG FOOD NEEDED?— Mrs. E. M. Butler 

 writes to me as follows : — ". ... I gave the hen, while 

 " rearing them, Hyde's seed, ants' eggs, oatmeal, and 

 ** stale sponge cake, mixed together and given dry, 

 " and the young birds (Canaries) were out on the 

 ** perches and flying at three weeks old, and are now 

 " stronger and finer birds than any I have before fed 

 •'on egg:' 



As an antithesis to this plain statement of fact 

 I will now quote from a letter which has recently 

 appeared in a contemporary, over the signature 

 of a gentleman who is already known to fame as 

 the exponent of the doctrine that birds can die by a 

 mere effort of will, whether they are diseased or not : — 

 ** I cannot agree with Baron du Theil in his objection 

 *' to the use of egg for young birds, because it is an 



