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BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



article dealing with labour in Germany, Mr. Barnes 

 gives an account of the Maschinen Fabrick Augs- 

 burg, where between three and four thousand men 

 are employed : 



" As may be imagined, Mr. Kruntz has very fine 

 and large ideas as to what an engineers' shop ought 

 to be, and as far as he can he is getting these 

 ideas put into concrete form. ... At present the 

 works and yard cover an area of 600 yards by 

 about 300 yards. The railway runs down the centre 

 of the yard, the main shops being parallel with k, 

 and skirted on the other side by a canal. Along 

 the side of the shops there are wooden posts at 

 intervals of about 1 5 feet, with little wooden boxes 

 on top, with holes for birds to enter and build their 

 nests." 



When will our "garden cities" conceive ideas 

 such as this ? 



An " Excellent Haul." 



Under the heading of " Bird-catching Extra- 

 ordinary," Canary and Cagebird Life (Jan. 4, 1907) 

 publishes a letter narrating how its writer, wanting 

 "some sport" in the bird-catching way, went out 

 with a Cheltenham professional on the Thursday 

 in Christmas week. They made their way through 

 the thick snow to arickyard, set nets and scattered 

 chaff, and immediately had the delight of seeing 

 the starving birds rush down from their shelter in 

 the surrounding bushes to entangle themselves in 

 the nets. 



" The sight I cannot describe. I never in my 

 life conceived such a haul. There was, practically 

 speaking, 12 ft. by 3 ft. one mass of living birds, 

 composed of starlings, greenfinches chaffinches, 

 linnets and bramblefinches, and to select the cocks 

 from these took us some half an hour as hard as we 

 could go- The hens we let go, with the exception 

 of a few that the gamekeeper, who happened to 

 come, asked us to give him for his ferrets." 



Two more pulls and an hour's catching sent him 

 home "delighted with our most excellent haul.'' 

 " Singular to relate," he adds, "we did not suffer 

 from cold in the least ; we were too busy to think 

 of that." Let us hope the whole storyis as "singular" 

 as the gallant " sportsman's " escape from suffer- 

 ing. His species must surely be rare in England : 

 the rarer the better. 



From East Anglia. 



Another well-satisfied person is the wildfowler of 

 East Anglia. He has had "good bags" this 

 season, and has secured " numbers of rare birds, 

 including several Bittern." Several beautiful Wild 

 Swans were shot on Breydon Water, and near 

 Burnham-on-Crouch one local sportsman with a 

 punt-gun killed as many as fifty Curlew with one 



shot. It is perhaps hardly to be expected that Sir 

 Herbert Maxwell's recent plea for the Curlew, 

 addressed to sportsmen, would reach the punt- 

 gunner ; but the shooter of Bitterns at least 

 should be tackled by the County Councils. 



A Prison Audience. 



Lectures by Members of the Royal Society for 

 the Protection of Birds have been given before 

 audiences of many classes and all ages, in public 

 schools, high schools, and village schools, to ladies 

 in west-end drawing rooms, and to free audiences 

 in east-end "settlements," to university under- 

 graduates in lecture theatres, and to cadets on 

 board training ships. The Hon. Sec. for Win- 

 chester, Miss E. M. Williams, gave an address in 

 December last to the women in the city prison, 

 women who had probably never before had their 

 thoughts turned to the life of birds. They listened 

 absorbed and fascinated ; and not with a heedless 

 curiosity only. One of them, who was shortly 

 completing her sentence spoke to a prison visitor 

 a few days later respecting the clothing she would 

 need from the friend who had charge of it ; she 

 would want her winter jacket, and so on : " but," 

 she added, " you tell her she can keep my best 

 hat, its got three wings on it, and I'll never wear 

 feathers again after what the lady said." If gently- 

 bred ladies had the gentle heart of this prison 

 inmate, the Egrets and Kittiwakes, the Birds-of- 

 Paradise, and Grebes and Tanagers might brood 

 over their nests in peace. 



BIRD AND TREE (ARBOR) DAY. 



The last issue of Bird Notes and News con- 

 tained a report on the work sent in by the elemen- 

 tary schools of the seven counties invited to 

 compete for the Society's Bird and Tree County 

 Challenge Shields and Prizes. The celebration of 

 a number of happy Festival days, with the presenta- 

 tion of Shields to the winning schools and of minor 

 awards to others has now to be recorded. The 

 extremely unpropitious weather, discouraging any 

 form of gathering and making outdoor proceedings 

 and tree-planting well-nigh impossible, has post- 

 poned some of the celebrations to later dates than 

 usual, it being considered better, in some instances 

 to let them preface the work of the new year. In 

 one or two cases even so late a day as May-day 

 has been decided on, thus reviving the old floral 

 festival under a new form. Many residents in 

 many parishes have to be thanked for substantial 

 help to the observance of the Festival, in the form 



