Notes & I 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Vol. IX.] 



WINTER. 1920. 



[No. 4. 



(( 



Stupidity Street " 



Some specimen cases of birdcatcliing cited on 

 " In the Courts " (p. 32) afiord interesting 

 samples of a trade which has increased since the 

 end of the war and which ought to be entirely 

 abolished. The excuse of " out of work " or 

 " old soldier " is ready to hand, and may in 

 some cases be true ; but it is poor economy, 

 to say the least of it, to allow men who have had 

 to help in war upon an enemy now to make 

 war upon the friends of the food-grower. One 

 offender had collected thistles from an adjoining 

 field to tempt the useful thistlefinches to their 

 destruction. This " gentleman " came to the 

 scene of operations in a motor-car. For another 

 offender it was said that he had always " been 

 fond of birds," and catching them was his 

 " hobby " ; and a third urged the death of one 

 of his unhappy braced birds as a sufficiently 

 heavy loss without a fine for using it. Cruelty 

 to these braced decoys is a general feature of 

 such cases, and will continue to be until every 

 magistrate orders the confiscation of every 

 bird and every net. The new Act, it is hoped, 

 will not leave them liberty of choice in the 

 matter. What benefit to describe birdcatching 

 as a " very cruel trade," as a West London 

 magistrate did the other day, yet leave the man 

 his decoy for continuing the business ? 



* :i« * 



The Goldfinches, Larks and Linnets caught 

 by these loafers are probably all destined for 

 the bird markets of big towns, such as the 

 disgraceful one in Sclater Street, E., where they 

 may, if they live, be sold from street stalls into 

 a life whose chief advantage is that it will 

 probably not last long. So far as Skylarks are 

 concerned, an infinitely greater number are 

 caught by nets and other contrivances to 

 festoon poulterers' shows and to grace the 

 dinners of city magnates or the dance-suppers 

 of would-be smart women. This wholesale 

 slaughter of song-birds as gastronomic tit-bits 

 has long deprived England of any justification 



for protest against the eating of Robins and 

 Warblers by Italians and French. Moreover, 

 it has led to the introduction into various stores 

 of Blackbirds and Thrushes, evidently as a 

 " feeler." Who can doubt that, unless the 

 whole business is suppressed at the outset 

 by public opinion, Robins and Warblers and 

 any other small birds will follow ? Men like 

 Lord Wolseley and Edward Clifford appealed 

 in vain in the earlier stages of the detestable 

 fashion. But here, as in almost every matter, 

 public opinion which condemns — and strongly 

 condemns — the practice could easily put an end 

 to it by practical methods. Complaint to a 

 Society is of little avail unless the individuals 

 who make up the Society, or who invoke its aid, 

 take their personal share of action. // every 

 Fellow, Member and Associate of the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds will refuse 

 to deal with any poulterer or with the game depart- 

 ment of any store where Larks are offered for sale, 

 those stores and those poulterers will quickly 

 find that it is not a paying business to provide 

 them. And there will be an end of the scandal. 

 The excuses of the Lark-catcher or dealer are 

 that Larks are destructive birds, that those 

 killed are migrants and therefore don't matter, 

 and that they belong to species which do not 

 sing. The last assertion is the lie direct ; the 

 second requires investigation, and may perhaps 

 be " paired " with the statement that thousands 

 of English Larks are netted for export to 

 France. The first is one of those equivocal 

 assertions usually advanced when the creature 

 to be killed may be profitably sold. The 

 profiteer dubs himself philanthropist, and 

 places a lively faith in public ignorance. A 

 newspaper which probably contains more 

 advertisements of " the fancy " than any other, 

 outside trade organs, recently published this 

 ingenuous comment : 



" Of all the song-birds found in this country probably 

 not one is more universally admired or more familiar 



