26 



Bird Notes and News 



than the Skylark, and its praises have oft been sung, 

 alike in prose and verse. . . . Although the 

 exquisite nature of their song is undeniable, there is 

 another side to the picture, and one not generally 

 known to anyone but the farmer and the ornithologist. 

 We refer to their destructive habits in com and clover 

 fields. . . . No one having any regard for the 

 beautiful Skylarks can fail to be shocked at the number 

 which are killed each year. At the same time, if the 

 farmer is to be relied upon — and we think he is in this 

 respect — they cannot be tolerated. In districts 

 where their numbers are unusually large it is customaiy 

 for men to be specially told off to capture them at 

 night by the aid of lark-nets, and dozens of the sweet 

 songsters fall victims to this form of trapping, the 

 captures afterwards being sold at a few pence per 

 head." 



What are the actual facts about " the other 

 side of the picture," as known to ornithologists 

 and to those farmers who have investigated 

 the question ? These. That the Lark will 

 attack the base of young green plants, especially 



if the seed was not planted deep enough, 

 and thus do damage at one season ; that all the 

 year it eats weevils, wireworm, and other 

 highly destructive pests, and great quantities 

 of weed-seeds ; that, in the words of Dr. W. E. 

 Collinge {Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 

 1918), supported by the verdicts of Mr. F. W. 

 Frohawk (Natural History Museum), Professor 

 Newstead, and others, " the injuries it does are 

 far outweighed by the benefits it confers." In 

 the face of these facts " thousands upon 

 thousands of a useful bird are annually killed," 

 as Canon Theodore Wood deplores, " for 

 a practically needless purpose, and agriculturists 

 injured to no little degree by the consequent 

 loss of their services." Which, then, is to be 

 " tolerated " — the minstrel of the sky, friend 

 of poet and food-grower alike, or the sale of its 

 tiny body for consumption by the gourmand ? 



The Plumage Trade 



BIEDS AND MAN. 



Preaching at Westminster Abbey on November 

 14th, 1920, on the subject of Christian Unity, 

 the Rev. R. H. Lightfoot, Fellow and Chaplain 

 of Lincoln College, Oxford, drew attention to 

 the moral obligations imposed by the discovery 

 of evolution and the unity of all life ; and in 

 the course of a powerful sermon referred to the 

 fate of the Plumage Bill as a negation of this 

 responsibility. He said : 



" Among Darwin's discoveries was this — that all 

 life in this world springs unquestionably from a single 

 root, so that the lower animals are quite literally our 

 distant cousins — our poor relations, we may call them. 

 And that raises some very big questions which it will 

 take centuries to settle, because in most parts of the 

 world we have hitherto treated our poor relations in 

 feather and fur as if they had no rights at all. I think 

 we may be proud and thankful that in this country 

 deliberate cruelty to animals is severely punished, 

 more severely, I believe, than in any other European 

 country ; but if you noticed in the newspapers last 

 summer the opposition raised in a Committee of the 

 House of Commons to the Plumage Bill, you had there 

 an illustration of the point I wish to make. That Bill 

 was designed to prevent the importation into England 

 of skins and feathers of wild birds, other than those 

 killed for food, and in particular of some very beautiful 

 and expensive plumes, which have to be obtained from 

 rare birds during the mating season by a particularly 

 hideous form of cruelty ; and yet, though it had passed 

 both Houses, it was held up in Committee, apparently 

 owing to the interests of the trade, by a mass of 

 amendments standing in the name of a very small 

 minority, and has been thereby so far successfully 

 delayed. You see, therefore, that though we have been 

 quick to use the revelation which came through Darwin, 



in all sorts of ways, we have as yet scarcely begun to 

 consider, still less to live out, the new and important 

 moral obligations which it brought. And it seems to be 

 a law also that if there is this one-sidedness there will 

 be trouble before long ; for revelation, though she says 

 nothing, quietly but firmly refuses, as time goes on, to 

 be exploited and to be used for purely selfish ends." 



BUSINESS MEN AND THE PLUMAGE 

 BILL. 



Mr. Frank Gladstone writes from Shrews- 

 bury to the Draper's Organizer (November 20th, 

 1920) to give " the ordinary unimaginative 

 business person's view of the foreign plumage 

 trafl&c and the probable effect of the Bill when 

 it becomes law." 



" The majority of men in this trade who know 

 anything about the Egret trade hate it and detest it. 

 They believe the tale of Egret farms to be a lie. They 

 know that moulted plumes exist in very small quantities, 

 and are practically unsaleable. They know that when 

 the Bill is passed, the comparatively few workers who 

 would be affected would be immediately absorbed in 

 the ostrich and poultry plumage trade. They know 

 that any deficiency in the plumage trade (if there should 

 be one) would be at once made good by the increase 

 in the artificial flower and berry trade. They are aware 

 that if this unholy trade was stopped, many hundreds 

 of thousands of pounds at present sent to the bird- 

 murderers would be paid in wages among our own 

 people and in our own country, and that the ostrich 

 farmer would benefit. They know that the number 

 of people who make a living by the sale of imported 

 feathers is infinitely small, and in no case do they live 

 solely by that means. So long as an active demand 

 exists, and so long as fashionable women will have 

 real osprey, and while some few M.P.'s (who should 

 know better) block the Bill, it is hardly to be hoped 



