Bird Notes and News 



21 



Notes 



One of the most vigorous and gallant of the 

 world's workers for birds and their protection, 

 Mr. William Dutcher, died on July 1st, 1920. 

 A member of the original Committee for the 

 Protection of Birds of the American Ornitho- 

 logists Union, he maintained the movement in 

 the United States in its lean and struggling 

 years, and was practically founder of the 

 National Association of Audubon Societies in 

 1901. When its incorporation was rendered 

 possible in 1905, by means of a large legacy, 

 he became its first President, and held that 

 office amid the respect and affection of all its 

 members, until his death, though for ten years 

 a stroke of paralysis, due to overwork, had 

 deprived him of the power of speech and 

 writing. His name will ever be honoured 

 among Bird Protectors the world over. Mr. 

 Dutcher, who was a direct descendant of one of 

 the "Mayflower" Pilgrims, was elected an 

 Hon. Life Fellow of the K.S.P.B., and was a 

 cordial friend and co-worker. 



It is impossible to forecast the future of 

 Colonel Yate's Plumage Bill. It does not 

 depend on the opinion of the country regarding 

 a trade than which none since the Slave Trade 

 has met with more, or better merited, condem- 

 nation ; nor on the vote of the House, which 

 has three times been recorded unmistakably ; 

 but on Committee procedure. If three men are 

 to be permitted to talk up and down and round 

 and round a hundred amendments, it is obvious 

 that time and patience will be worn out long 

 before the chance of a Third Eeading comes ; 

 and, obvious also, that no private Bill will 

 ever have a chance in Parliament so long as a 

 handful of interested persons oppose Committee 

 and House. Should any attempt at concession 

 or negotiation be entered upon, it is perfectly 

 clear that this will be made merely the ground 

 for demanding more and yet more until an 

 absolutely useless Bill exists for no other 

 purpose than that of throwing dust in the eyes 

 of the public. The trade want to " use " the 

 birds, other people want to save the birds. 

 That, as Mr. Montagu said on the Second 

 Reading, is the one simple truth, whatever 

 the circumlocutions and assurances and 

 evasions and subterfuges of profiteers who have 

 ..never yet faced the world with an honest 

 defence, but whose whole hope has been, and is, 



in confusing the issue, perverting the facts, and 

 postponing the verdict. 



The appearance of a pair of Bee-eaters at 



Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, and their 



attempt to breed a thousand miles north of their 



natural breeding-haunts, is an interesting event 



in British ornithology, though it met with but 



a melancholy end. This brilliantly coloured 



bird, about the size of the Blackbird, has been 



killed and " taken " now and again at various 



places in our Isles, and is scheduled by the Act ; 



but it has never nested. On this occasion there 



is no doubt that the pair made a nest in a 



sand-bank, merrily supporting life for a spell 



on bees and flies, and that an egg was laid. The 



rest of the story is involved in dispute and 



uncertainty ; but the female bird, brought 



dead in an emaciated state to Dr. Eagle Clarke, 



exists in the Scottish Museum as a memorial 



to the folly of the misguided birds in their 



choice of a home. 



ii t * 



Thanks to the persevering efforts of Dr. and 

 Mrs. Albert Wilson, a Bird Sanctuary has been 

 formed on the Pentire peninsula, near Newquay, 

 in Cornwall, the landowners on both sides of the 

 river Gannel having agreed to prohibit the 

 killing of either land or sea birds. The example 

 is one that should be followed wherever a 

 stretch of river or coast, a woodland, or a heath 

 or hillside can be by tact and diligence secured. 



« 4c * 



One of the birds most in need of protection in 

 its riverside haunts in this country, and one 

 whose foreign cousins are among those count- 

 less victims of the plume-trade for whose 

 feathers neither " farms " nor " moulted 

 plumes " can pretend to account — the King- 

 fisher — forms the subject of the Society's 

 Greeting-card for 1920-21. The artist is Mr. 

 Roland Green, a young bird-painter from whom 

 much is expected. Mr. Green is illustrating a 

 book on birds by Canon Theodore Wood, 

 which will shortly be published, and the Ruskin 

 Press, of which he is an Art Associate, is 

 reproducing a series of his sketches. 

 * * * 



Two Hoopoes are recorded in British Birds 

 as having been killed this spring in Staffordshire. 

 As this rare bird is a scheduled species, the 

 shooting was, of course, illegal, but equally, 



