46 



Bird Notes and News 



Notes 



The Wild Birds Advisory Committees (it was 

 perhaps difficult to hit upon a happier name) 

 held their initial meetings on May 12th, 

 followed by a joint meeting the following day. 

 There is good hope that they may be able to 

 efiect some practical reforms in the framing 

 and simplifying of the County Orders, which 

 at present show a baffling variety and confusion 

 both in their own provisions and in the relation 

 between adjoining counties and between 

 county areas and the county boroughs geo- 

 graphically contained in the counties. What 

 the Committees have to do is to take up all the 

 jigsaw pieces of this puzzle and produce 

 a picture with clear, definite outlines. Mr. 

 Holderness, of the Home Office, is giving help 

 as Secretary of the English Committee, and 

 Dr. James Eitchie, who has succeeded Dr. 

 Eagle Clarke as Keeper of the Natural History 

 Department of the Eoyal Scottish Museum, is 

 Secretary for the Scottish Committee. 

 * * * 



Sir William Beach Thomas, commenting 

 on the recent shooting of a Bittern in Essex 

 (where no protection is provided for it by the 

 inefficient County Order) suggests that the 

 carrying of a gun should be made illegal during 

 the close season, adding that special leave could 

 be given to farmers for keeping down rabbits 

 and woodpigeons. (Mr. Trevor-Batty e inti- 

 mated, in speaking at the E.S.P.B. Annual 

 Meeting, that some of the farmers' guns shot less 

 legitimate game and were a menace to the 

 farmers' own friends the Owls.) It is to be 

 feared that this prohibition would not save rare 

 birds as long as the insatiate collector's 

 money is a safe thing for the offender ; but it 

 would be an admirable provision all the same, 

 and with it should be associated the prohibition 

 of all sale of wild birds, dead or alive, during the 

 same period. An open market will always 

 produce the goods whatever the embargo on 

 procuring or importing. 



4: * * 



The disappearance of the Swallows is more 

 marked than ever this summer. This delight- 

 ful messenger of summer, with its glancing 

 wing and delicate warble, the largest and 

 handsomest and most musical of our three birds 

 of the Swallow tribe, and perhaps the most 

 graceful and expert of all birds on the wing, 

 seems doomed to extinction as a British species. 

 If one Swallow does not make a summer, it 



prophesies its coming with certainty, but the 

 summers of the future cannot make a Swallow 

 unless cause and remedy are found for the rapid 

 decrease which has now been going on for at 

 least twenty years. In view of their beauty 

 and their great value to man, all the tribe — 

 Swallow, House-Martin, Sand-Martin — should 

 be at once placed on the schedule of protected 

 birds by every County Council in Great Britain. 



Nightingale and Cuckoo, on the other hand, 

 appear to be more than ordinarily numerous, 

 though careful record and comparison are 

 necessary before statements of this kind can be 

 made with certainty. The note of the latter 

 has been a familiar sound within the five-mile 

 radius ; and the Nightingale is recorded by 

 Mr. H. S. Davenport, from Budleigh Salterton, 

 which is almost on that dividing line, the valley 

 of the Exe, west of which, says Mr. Hudson, 

 it is not heard. From the same place Mr. 

 Davenport reports a rare visitor, the Melodious 

 Warbler {Hypolais polygJotfa). 



The difficulty of steering a simple reform 

 through Parliament is well illustrated by Sir 

 Harry Brittain's Bird Protection Bill. On 

 May 12th, in reply to questions arising out of 

 a bird-catching case, put by the Member for 

 Acton, the Home Secretary said that no doubt 

 the law required strengthening, and he would 

 be glad when Parliament had time to consider 

 the recommendations of the Departmental 

 Committee ; meanwhile he agreed that it 

 would be a good thing for a private Member 

 to bring in a Bill and the Government would 

 give facilities. Sir Harry Brittain introduced 

 next night a short measure making the use of 

 bird-lime and of braced and tethered decoy- 

 birds illegal ; these being two of the recom- 

 mendations of the Committee. There is no 

 doubt as to the cruelty of the practices, which 

 have been condemned by magistrates times 

 without number. The Second Eeading of the 

 Bill was, how^ever, blocked on June 15th, 

 June 22nd, and June 23rd, and at present no 

 date is given for its further consideration. 

 * * * 



Two interesting prosecutions in the nature 

 of test cases have recently been brought into 

 the Courts, one in Belfast, w^here a bird-dealer 

 alleged that a caged Sk)dark did not require 

 water since its food was mixed with buttermilk ; 



