BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



89 



and show careful study. Exford shares with this 

 school the honour of second place, having improved 

 greatly since last year. The Bird papers are full 

 of personal notes, and one on the Flycatcher, by a 

 boy of eleven, must be specially mentioned. Had 

 the Tree papers been as good, Exford would have 

 been very near indeed to securing the Shield. The 

 Castle Cary boys send in very good papers, 

 careful, full of facts, and remarkably well 

 expressed. If they would give their own 

 impressions of things more boldly they would 

 be hard to beat. The Castle Cary girls also 

 write very agreeably, failing to gain first-class 

 honours only because their essays are rather 

 " thin " compared with some others. The essays 

 from the Frome boys are accompanied with some 

 wonderfully clever drawings, and the boys have 

 evidently taken great pains with all their work, and 

 put a good deal of heart into it, with admirable 

 results. There are some exceedingly good 

 drawings also among the papers from the Oldfield 

 Girls' School, and the matter of their essays is well 

 and pleasantly put. Both this team and that from 

 Shingston Dyche School need more study and 

 more observation to bring them to the front, 

 but the Dyche girls, too, write a nice, unaffected 

 style. East Brent, Highbridge, has done very 

 well. The papers are all on much the same level, 

 and all pleasing ; the boys ought to rouse them- 

 selves and take their part in upholding the school 

 honours. The Tree essays are the best from 

 YYembdon, and if all had been equal to that on 

 the Horse Chestnut the School would have taken a 

 much higher place. The Bird studies are short and 

 slight. In the case of the Wraxall girls the trees 

 are again best, and are well written and well 

 expressed. The birds do not seem to have been 

 studied with the same attention. Moreover, girls 

 usually succeed best with plant subjects, and boys 

 with birds— one reason why small schools with 

 mixed teams sometimes succeed better than larger 

 schools with separate departments. 



As some readers may not be familiar with the 

 objects and methods of Bird and Tree, or Arbor. 

 Day, to which so much space is given in the present 

 number of Bird Notes and News, it may be 

 well to summarise them briefly. 



Bird and Tree Day was introduced into England 

 five years ago by the Royal Society for the Protec- 

 tion of Birds, with a three-fold object : 



ist. To encourage an intelligent interest in and 

 knowledge of British Birds and Trees. 



2nd. To provide a satisfactory scheme of Nature 

 Study, by getting children to study wild life and 

 implanting in them that love of nature which is a 

 source of delight throughout life. 



3rd. To add to the pleasures of Country Life by 

 establishing a yearly festival, capable of varied 

 celebration in different localities. 



The central requirement of Bird and Tree Work 

 is that each student shall select a Wild Bird and 

 a Tree for outdoor observation throughout the 

 summer months, and write an account of both on 

 some given date in the autumn. 



All the Schools are in early spring invited to 

 enter Teams. A Team consists of nine scholars 

 in each School. These nine choose their Birds 

 and Trees, notice and learn all they can on their 

 subjects, and in September write the Essays under 

 the superintendence of a Local Committee. From 

 the 18 Essays thus written, the Local Committee 

 choose the six best and forward them to the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds. The Society's 

 judges examine the Essays from all the competing 

 Schools, and award the Shield, with Book and 

 Money awards, to the School sending in the best 

 set of papers. Other Prizes are given according 

 to the number of competing Schools, and Montagu 

 Sharpe Medals for the two best Essays from every 

 School. 



The Society's Judging Committee include some 

 of the leading ornithologists in England. This 

 year the Judges were : Mr. Montagu Sharpe, 

 Chairman of the R.S.P.B. Council ; Mr. J. L. 

 Bonhote, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. ; Mr. G. A. Freeman, 

 B.Sc. ; Mr. W. H. Hudson, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. \ 

 Mrs. F. E. Lemon, F.Z.S. ; and Mr. Trevor- 

 Battye, F.Z.S. 



The Society's ultimate object is to see Bird and 

 Tree Day recognized by the Education Department 

 and established as a National Festival throughout 

 the country. 



As one among many similar letters received 

 from School Teachers, may be quoted the follow- 

 ing from the Head Master of one of the competing 

 Schools : — 



" Our ambition is to be worthy of ' Small 

 Holdings' when they come — able to earn a living 

 upon them and to enjoy that life by having no dull 

 moments. Everybody who has known the children 

 here for any length of time says we are graduallv 

 waking up, and I am grateful to your Society for 

 giving me the principal help in the work. The 

 School work is better, and the children and 

 teachers are happier." 



