50 



Bird Notes and News 



Secretary, the K.S.P.B. were able to bring the 

 matter to tlie notice of the French Ambassador 

 in London, in tlie hope that through him the 

 French Government would take action. The 

 reply was that by the International Convention 

 of 1902, to which France was a party, the taking 

 of Swallows, or trading in them, was strictly 

 prohibited, that the reports were probably 

 largely inaccurate, and that the French 

 Minister of Agriculture would see to it that 

 all regulations laid down were duly observed. 



In 1914 Captain Tailby, as a member of the 

 Council of the R.S.P.B., visited Paris in order 

 to discuss the question with the Presidents and 

 other ofrlcers of the Societe d'Acclimatation 

 de France and the Ligue Frangaise pour la 

 Protection des Oiseaux, and left with the 

 latter a sum of money to stimulate and reward 

 investigation. 



Then came the war. Many French workers 

 have laid down their lives ; others are occupied 

 with the reconstruction of Flanders or are 

 ruined and helpless to act. The Ligue has 

 bravely pulled itself together, and under its 

 new President, M. Delacour (who has succeeded 

 M. Ternier), will no doubt pursue its admirable 

 work. But neither M. Delacour nor M. 

 Baudouy nor M. Henri Kehrig is able to afford 

 any fresh information about the Swallows. And 

 it may be still more certainly said that the 

 newspaper correspondence of 1921 has added 

 nothing whatever. 



This, then, is where the problem stands at 

 present. The Swallovfs are disappearing. 

 They are said to be as plentiful as ever in Africa 

 and in Spain. Either they are killed during 



migration, or England for some reason no 

 longer attracts them. French law gives them 

 complete protection (as English law should 

 do), but it is a familiar enough fact that pro- 

 tection by law is not always protection in fact. 

 By the statements of French naturalists they 

 have been killed in myriads since the Conven- 

 tion was ratified by the French law of 1903, for 

 food, or for their feathers, or both. Ever 

 since the question was started, the use of electric 

 wires for killing them has been freely spoken of, 

 but it does not appear that any writer has seen 

 these or can describe their location and how 

 they arc worked. 



For the second argument, it is pointed out 

 that unknown climatic influences may be at 

 work ; that house-sparrows drive them from 

 their nests ; or that they have been robbed of 

 nesting facilities by the frequent lime-washing of 

 sheds, the better repair of barns, stables, and 

 other places in which the birds were wont to 

 build. (Swallows nest inside buildings, not 

 outside like House-Martins), and by the growing 

 use of corrugated iron for farm buildings. The 

 third suggestion is by far the most credible; 

 climatic changes would probably aficct other 

 migrants, and House-Sparrows displace Martins 

 rather than Swallows. Support is given to it 

 by numerous comments in essays received by 

 the Society from Elementary Schools, on the 

 destruction of nests inside school buildings as 

 impossible things in a neat and " satiiiary " 

 school, and of the pathetically persistent efforts 

 of the Swallows to gain a footing and to make 

 a home. But it cannot be said that any ex- 

 planation yet arrived at is satisfactory. 



Bird-Ringing 



Although the long report in The Ibis (July, 

 1921) upon bird-ringing as a method of studying 

 bird-migration does not add very much 

 information to the stock in hand, it affords 

 some interesting facts. The inquiry reported 

 upon is that conducted by Aberdeen University, 

 which was set on foot in 1909 and carried out 

 mainly by Dr. A. Landsborough Thomson. It 

 is obvious that an immense number of birds 

 must be " ringed " in order to obtain any 

 results whatever from the extremely small 

 proportion found or " obtained." Most people 

 know now that the old division of birds into 

 " resident " and " migratory " is to a con- 

 siderable extent misleading, owing to move- 

 ments and partial migrations, and to the 

 possibility of one species of bird being at once 



resident, winter visitor, summer visitor, and 

 bird of passage, as actually haj)pens in the case 

 of the Song-Thrush. Lately, however, there 

 has been a tendency to exaggerate in the other 

 direction ; and popular writers have assured 

 the public that the Robins and other small 

 birds they see in their gardens in winter are 

 never those they see in summer. Dr. Thomson 

 shows that some Redbreasts, Blackbirds, Tits, 

 House-Sparrows, Greenfinches and Hedge- 

 Sparrows are remarkably sedentary ; though 

 it has of course to be remembered that such 

 individuals are much more easily recovered than 

 individuals which move away. He also sup- 

 ports the established theory that migrants, 

 such as Swallow, Swift and Flycatcher, return to 

 the same summer quarters in successive years. 



