34 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



being sent out from the half-ruined city. ' ; In a 

 State such as California," the circular says, " where 

 agriculture constitutes a large and important 

 factor, wild birds are an asset of great value, and 

 their wanton destruction has made protection not 

 only a duty but a necessity.'" 



AN AMERICAN ON BRITISH BIRDS. 



Mr. Frank Chapman, an American ornitholo- 

 gist, who came over to this country for the Inter- 

 national Ornithological Congress last summer, has 

 an interesting article in a recent number of 

 Scrib?ier's Magazine (June, 1906), on English Bird 

 Life as compared with that of the United States. 

 The bird which satisfied him best was the Black- 

 bird ; " its luscious, full-flavoured, mellow fluting 

 has in a measure the tender spiritual qualify so 

 pronounced in the voices of our thrushes, and 

 which I found rare in the songs of English birds,'' 

 while ''something naive, unformed, quaint and 

 simple " in the notes increased the attractiveness 

 of the singer. The lyrical song of the Blackcap, 

 the brilliance of the Thrush, and the "bright if not 

 highly melodious bit of bird music" furnished by 

 the Chaffinch also pleased him ; and he at once 

 realised the singular charm of the Cuckoo's call. 

 On the other hand, he was disappointed with the 

 Nightingale, as many people have been who expect 

 one knows not what of the bird of birds. Mr. 

 Chapman tells us what he expected — " a rushing 

 outpouring of music ; whereas he heard a song of 

 disconnected phrases, with pauses in between, a 

 surprisingly loud, voluble, varied, but (shade of 

 Keats !) rather hard performance. Mr. Chap- 

 man evidently came over too late to hear the 

 Nightingale at its best ; nor can he always have 

 discriminated the delightful warble, so pure and 

 wistful, of the Robin, whose "shrill winding pipe 

 and detached fragments of song" must, he suggests, 

 be heard in winter to account for the place it holds 

 in English literature. It was Mr. Chapman's 

 eminent predecessor, John Burroughs, who re- 

 marked that the Robin, "of the royal line of the 

 Nightingale," had not had justice done him by 

 poets and writers. The "brilliant twitterings and 

 long-drawn reelings" of the Skylark likewise "did 

 not appeal" to Mr. Chapman ; the obvious expla- 

 nation being that too high an expectation sends the 

 pendulum swinging back to disappointed dis- 

 paragement. 



The Willow-Wren, which Mr. Burroughs so 

 well appreciated, pleased Mr. Chapman also by 



its "easy, flowing, graceful, natural song" ; and he 

 was surprised not to find more general apprecia- 

 tion of this bird and of the Reed- Warbler. The 

 latter, however, is not a bird of the hedgerow and 

 open country, and the majority of people seldom or 

 never hear the song. Is it not of the Reed-Warbler (it 

 can hardly have been the Reed-Bunting) that one 

 of our earliest of bird-poets, Drayton, speaks when 

 he ranks so high the melody of the "reed- sparrow "? 

 After Throstle, " Woosel," Nightingale and 

 Linnet, 



" the Woodlark place we then, 

 "The Reed-Sparrow, the Nope, the Robin and the Wren."' 



Mr. Chapman was much struck by the abundance 

 of the Rook, Starling, " the splendid Woodpigeon," 

 and the Moorhen, and generally by the fact that, 

 in spite of universal bird-nesting and bird-catching, 

 birds are more numerous here than in the States. 

 They have not, he observes, to face the rigorous 

 winters of America, and a much greater proportion 

 are permanent residents, avoiding the dangers 

 consequent on constant migration. Of the 225 

 ordinary British species 134 remain with us all the 

 year. Out of 310 New York species only 35 are 

 permanently resident. 



" COUNTRY IN TOWN." 



The Country in Town Exhibition held at White- 

 chapel in July resembled in many features (perhaps 

 too many) the Nature Study Exhibitions of previous 

 years. The idea of illustrating the manner in which 

 towns may be ruralised, and the means adopted to 

 attain this both in England and in other lands, was 

 an admirable one, and it was carried out in some 

 very interesting exhibits. There was a fine display 

 of flowers to show what is done in London Parks, 

 and what may be achieved in small spaces and 

 even in " slum " dwellings by the selection of kindly 

 vegetation. Everyone knows the gladness given 

 by a green climber or a well-filled window-box, 

 whether in west-end or east-end. Pictures and 

 plans of garden cities and suburbs exemplified 

 larger efforts to arrest the growing ugliness of 

 civilization. No doubt it would have been hard to 

 withstand the opportunity of encouraging school- 

 children by a display of their pot-plants, though 

 this was running a little off the line ; but the show 

 of drawing-books, children's essays, and innumer- 

 able tadpoles, etc., in vivaria, confused the visitor 

 and detracted from the unity and usefulness of the 

 Exhibition. Collections of pressed flowers, cages 



