92 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



NOTES. 



Plume-Hunters in the Soudan. 



The French Government has, it is announced, 

 decided to supply funds for a thorough test of the 

 question whether the Ostrich can be successfully 

 domesticated in the French Soudan. Anxiety on 

 the subject has arisen from the fact that the natives 

 of Upper Senegal and Niger are, at the instigation 

 of the plume-hunters, rapidly exterminating both 

 Ostrich and Heron. Dr. Decorse, who has been 

 investigating the matter for the Government, 

 accordingly recommends an effort to farm the 

 former bird, as is done so commonly in South 

 Africa, by the establishment of large ranches where 

 the birds may be kept as much as possible in the 

 natural state. With regard to the Herons, only 

 one course is possible if the birds are to be 

 preserved. The hunting of them is to be entirely 

 prohibited for two years, and reservations are to be 

 set apart in which the natives are never to be 

 permitted to hunt the species. 



Bird Protection in South Australia. 



The South Australian Branch of the R.S.P.B. 

 has not been heard of very much of late, owing to 

 Mrs. Playford's difficulty in finding an energetic 

 Hon. Secretary to carry on the crusade she so well 

 started, but it is still quietly at work. Writing this 

 Autumn for a large supply of leaflets, Mrs. Playford 

 says: "We saw with great pleasure not long ago 

 that a woman out in the country had been fined £6 

 for illegal possession of Plovers. The police, under 

 orders from Commissioner Madley, are very much 

 on the alert, so our Society though languishing, is 

 reaping the benefit of the law we were able to 

 secure." 



The Police and the Birdcatchers. 



The topsy-turvy case heard at Reading the 

 other day, in which a birdcatcher summoned the 

 police, affords an instructive illustration of one of 

 the weak points in the Wild Bird Protection law. 

 The present provisions give no power to arrest 

 offenders, but only to summon ; consequently 

 though the police or the R.S.P.C.A. Inspectors 

 may see the law broken under their own eyes they 

 stand a remarkably poor chance of bringing the 

 offender to book. 



In a country place the loafer who resorts to 

 bird catching to " earn an honest shilling " may be 

 pretty well known, but where, as in a majority of 



cases, he is a highly undesirable visitor from town, 

 he will of course give a false name and address, 

 and it is difficult to follow him up as he slouches 

 off to the railway station with his nets, his miserable 

 decoys and his captured birds. A suitable com- 

 promise might be to empower the officer to take 

 possession of nets and birds as a hostage for the 

 offender's appearance at the police-court. 



The Collector. 



Another weakness in the law, and one more 

 difficult to cope with, is that which enables the 

 collector openly to boast of the way in which he 

 has possessed himself of " protected" species. In 

 a book entitled " A Bird Collector's Medley," 

 recently published by E. C. Arnold, the writer 

 gives a full account of a "drive" of Bearded Tits 

 on a Norfolk Broad, by which he succeeded in 

 killing several of these birds — one of the rarest 

 of British species. If, as Mr. Arnold says in an 

 attempt to defend this disgraceful proceeding, in 

 the Field, he was accompanied by the owner of 

 the Broad, it can only be deplored that the place 

 is not in the hands of someone, who if he cinnot 

 appreciate wild-bird life, can at least obey the 

 none too stringent provisions of the local Bird 

 Protection Order. Similarly, in "Notes on the 

 Birds of Kent," by R. G. Balston, the taking of rare 

 and protected birds such as Buzzards, is chronicled. 



Birds and Trees. 



A large number of Bird and Tree Festivals, or 

 " Arbor Days " will have been held before the 

 present number of Bird Notes and News is in 

 the reader's hands ; but the report of them is 

 reserved for the Spring Number in order that all 

 may appear together. In the next number of 

 Bird Notes and News it is also proposed to 

 give a few short extracts from some of the Essays, 

 as instances of observations made by children. 

 This year Essays have been sent in on thirty-seven 

 species of Birds, and thirty-four different kinds of 

 Trees. The Thrush and Blackbird continue popular 

 to a somewhat wearisome extent, followed by the 

 Robin, Rook, Chaffinch, and Skylark, in equal 

 numbers ; and the Oak, as usual, heads the Trees, 

 followed by the Beech and Horse-Chestnut, but 

 the Walnut has taken a sudden leap into favour. 

 The limitations of the selection are still curious, 

 seeing that such abundant species as the Green- 

 finch, Woodpigeon, Linnet, Willow-wren, Swift, 

 and Owl have hardly any chroniclers, though 

 essays on Moorhen, Kingfisher, and Lapwing are 



