BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



81 



Bird Protectionists, it furnishes a most useful 

 epitome for all who wish to understand and to 

 seek hints from American legislation for the 

 preservation of birds. When it is said that since 

 the passing of the Lacey Act in 1900, nearly 700 

 game laws have, been enacted by the various 

 States, it will be seen that England is not the only 

 country where a multiplicity of Acts and Orders 

 may cause some confusion in the public mind. 

 The office of Warden was established in the 

 States fifty-five years ago; twenty-three States and 

 two Territories have now State Game Wardens, the 

 office having in one case Cabinet rank ; in seven 

 States there are county wardens, and nearly every 

 State requires the police to enforce the game laws. 

 The only person able to defy the law appears to 

 be the tribal Indian on his own reservation. 



An Appeal to Game Preservers. 



Mr. Hugh Turner, the Society's Hon. Sec. for 

 Suffolk, writes to the East Anglian Daily Times 

 on the shooting of Nightjars by gamekeepers. 

 Pursuing flies and beetles in the dusk — a time when 

 the keeper concludes that all good birds are in 

 bed — the beautiful and useful Churn-Owl is 

 supposed to have evil designs on the pheasants. 



' ; That the Nightjar, one of the most interesting 

 of the migratory birds breeding here, is — from the 

 formation of its bill and mouth — absolutely in- 

 capable of harming the smallest bird, is a fact I 

 suppose one cannot expect the average gamekeeper 

 to know. Parliament makes Acts, County Councils 

 make Orders, stating that the killing of a Nightjar 

 at any time of the year renders the offender liable 

 to the penalty of £1, and the same Acts and Orders 

 apply to every species of Owl, and to some of the 

 Hawks, yet the destruction of these birds continues. 

 What are the County Police doing in the matter? 

 I do not think the majority of game preservers 

 desire this waste of bird life, and I would, therefore, 

 appeal to them to order their keepers to cease from 

 shooting birds and to confine their attentions to 

 the destruction of rats." 



Market Yalue. 



An important point is raised by a gamekeeper, 

 who writes to the Society to enquire whether the 

 exposure for sale of Wood-pigeons is legal in close 

 time. He says : — 



" I know the damage they do sometimes to 

 corn crops, and farmers have a right to shoot them 

 and eat them if they like, but when there is a sale 

 for them it finds occupation for a lot of idle loafers, 

 who decoy the birds to ponds and grass fields 

 (where they do no harm) on purpose to shoot and 

 sell them for 'bacco and beer monev." 



It is a point which Bird Protectors would do 

 well to have in remembrance, and one on which 

 our legislation is weak. Farmers and other 

 growers may kill birds even in nesting time ; some 

 birds must be killed. Very well : then why not, 

 it is often urged, let us make money by selling 

 them or their feathers ? Why not eat them, as 

 they do in Italy? Why not wear them in our 

 hats ? The answer is plain. Because the very 

 moment you provide a market you offer a bribe 

 for the destruction of the birds ; you bring in the 

 professional birdcatcher ; and the first ostensible 

 reason for killing becomes nothing more than a 

 half-forgotten pretext, overpowered by the universal 

 thirst for money-getting. Under our law a man 

 need not pretend that he considers a bird injurious 

 to his crops in order to shoot or trap it, but even 

 if this condition was* required, how many birds 

 would become " injurious '' when bodies or feathers 

 can be sold at a profit ? The terms of the National 

 Bird Protection Convention, it may be noted, in 

 allowing licences to cultivators for the shooting of 

 birds especially forbid the sale of birds so killed. 



Wholesale Bird-Netting. 



Sir Herbert Maxwell, who, with Mr. Howard 

 Saunders and Mr. Dundas-Harford, represented 

 Great Britain at the International Bird Protection 

 Conference in 1895. nas some comments in the 

 Pall Mall Gazette (August 26th, 1907), on the Bird- 

 Protection Convention. With reference to Great 

 Britain, he observes : — 



" It is to be regretted that Great Britain should 

 appear to desert the cause of bird protection by 

 declining to subscribe to the International Con- 

 vention. There is, indeed, crying and growing 

 need for a remedy against the evil of wholesale 

 netting at night, which has already practically 

 exterminated Ruffs -ajjd Reeves on our coats, and is 

 now working sad destruction in the flocks of that 

 most useful bird, the Lapwing. We require the 

 prohibition, to which the subscribing States have 

 bound themselves under Article III. of the Con- 

 vention, viz. : — 



The construction and employment of traps, 

 cages, nets, nooses, lime-twigs, or any other 

 kind of instrument used for the purpose of 

 rendering easy the wholesale capture or des- 

 truction of birds, shall be forbidden. 

 " Discrimination between useful and hurtful, 

 protected and unprotected, birds is impossible in 

 using long and high nets set up on poles after 

 dark on the shore and mudflats for the capture of 

 wildfowl. The use of these is extending in this 

 country, and will soon render many desirable 

 species scarce which are still plentiful." 



