64 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



April brought, it appears, exceedingly few species, 

 but the "rush" began on April 1 8th, and from 

 that date till the end of the first week in May the 

 birds poured in. "In the case of many species 

 one wave followed another so closely that they 

 practically arrived in a continuous stream for a 

 week, ten days, or longer." The largest number 

 of species actually arriving on a given day (as 

 noted in the Report) was thirteen on the 18th of 

 April, nine of which came in together to the Isle 

 of Wight. 



All profits arising from the sale of the Report 

 are devoted to the furtherance of the work. It is 

 edited by Mr. Ogilvie Grant, and published for 

 the B.O.C. by Messrs. Witherby & Co. 



NOTES. 



The Gamekeeper's Hawk. 



The Rev. Hubert Astley, whose attempt some 

 little time ago to introduce Storks into England 

 was frustrated by the haste of a collector to prove 

 them British birds by shooting them, has had 

 another typical experience of the man with a gun. 

 A little while ago Mr. Astley, who is well-known to 

 be an ardent student of bird-life, secured, after 

 years of waiting, an extremely rare Australian 

 Parrakeet— a brilliant bird with a red cap, yellow 

 cheeks, green back and tail, mauve throat and 

 chest, and scarlet thighs and under-tail-coverts. 

 The bird escaped, and handbills were at once 

 issued to acquaint the neighbourhood. Four days 

 afterwards the con>table of Boxford brought to 

 Benham Park the dead body, a gamekeeper having 

 deliberately shot it, in mistake, he avowed, for a 

 Sparrowhawk ! Except in point of size, remarks 

 Mr. Astley, it was about as much like that bird of 

 prey as a Tom-tit ; " imagine a man who claims to 

 be a gamekeeper mistaking a Parrakeet with a 

 long thin and pointed tail and plumage of tropical 

 hue, for a Sparrowhawk ! In England, however, 

 once the bird is dead there is an end of it, and the 

 keeper who, in his ignorance or prejudice, shoots 

 an Osprey or an Owl, or a Buzzard, or a Parrakeet, 

 continues to defend his master's Pheasants against 

 all comers with zeal, if not with discretion. In 

 Germany they manage things differently. Mr. 

 Astley quotes a case that happened while he was 

 in that country last summer. A gardener shot a 

 rare bird which escaped from a neighbouring 

 dealer ; by the law of the land he was deprived 

 of his gun, and fined ,£15, the value of the bird. 



Mr. Astley on Bird Protection. 



In narrating the loss of his Parrakeet and touch- 

 ing on several points of Bird Protection, in the 

 Newbury Weekly News (April 25th and May 2nd, 

 1907), Mr. Astley refers especially to the destruction 

 of Lapwings. 



" Not long ago, when I remarked to a game- 

 keeper on the paucity of Green Plovers (Lapwings) 

 this spring where many couples used to nest, I was 

 informed that the reason is that they have not been 

 sufficiently shot at ! I have heard of birds dis- 

 appearing because they are shot, and shot at, but 

 in one's wildest moments one never conceived such 

 a wonderful idea as that of birds saying to them- 

 selves and each other, ' We must give up rearing 

 our young ones here, we have no excitement at all, 

 we must go elsewhere where they will shoot us ' " ! ! ! 



The same argument is, however, commonly 

 employed as a reason for Rook shooting. If the 

 young Rooks are not shot as soon as they are oft 

 the nest, one is solemnly told, the Rooks will desert 

 the rookery. Nowadays, the Rook's sins, real and 

 imaginary, are perhaps more commonly held to 

 necessitate the slaughter, but the old tale did just 

 as well as an excuse for rook pie. 



" I am informed," adds Mr. Astley, " that farmers 

 and others shoot the Lapwings on the higher lands 

 in the winter. I have no doubt they do. There 

 are many men in this country who are never happy 

 unless they are making something else unhappy, 

 never content unless they can be shooting some- 

 thing, and when certain birds have become extinct 

 (and we of this generation lack many a beautiful 

 and interesting species owing to the actions of a 

 past generation), those who take pleasure in shoot- 

 ing and trapping them will have had their pleasure 

 and will have deprived future generations of that 

 which is to many an intense one--the watching of 

 birds in their flight and in their nesting, the listen- 

 ing to melodious calls and pipings, the waiting for 

 their return to the breeding quarters, the quiet hour 

 in the meadows and the woods, taking snapshots 

 with a camera and not with a gun, carrying away 

 an interesting record but not a mangled body. 



" This last is all that usually remains of a Hoopoe, 

 one of the most beautiful and useful birds, which 

 is yearly represented as a spring migrant to 

 England, and would no doubt increase in numbers 

 if permitted to do so ; but no ! it is a rare bird, and 

 the cry is ' Run into the house and fetch my gun ; 

 look sharp now.' And the result ? A horrible 

 hideous glass case or coffin, with a hoopoe's skin 

 stuffed, and more than likely badly mounted, the 

 feathers of which soon lose their colour and the 

 formerly graceful shape its contour." 



Poisoned Game. 



If Mr. Astley's experience of gamekeepers who 

 shoot Parrakeets as Hawks, and Cuckoos because 



