Bird Notes and News 



61 



Committee ; communications with the Board 

 of Education relative to the extension of the 

 Bird and Tree scheme in Elementary Schools ; 

 Bird Protection in Singapore and in the 

 Isle of Man ; and Sir Harry Brittain's Bird 

 Protection Bill. 



H.R.H. PRINCESS MARY 



A letter signed on behalf of the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds by the 

 Hon. Secretary has been addressed to H.R.H. 

 Princess Mary, offering congratulations on her 

 approaching marriage ; and at the same time 

 begging that instructions might be issued for- 

 bidding the use of the plumage of wild birds 

 in Her Royal Highness's trousseau. The 

 recent passing of a law prohibiting the importa- 

 tion of such plumage led to the hope that no 

 feathers so banned would be allowed to appear 

 on Her Royal Highness's hats ; such an 



example would have a far-reaching effect, not 

 only in regard to the ruthless massacre of birds, 

 but also in promoting the employment of 

 British women and girls in the making of other 

 trimmings. 



A letter of acknowledgment and thanks has 

 been received expressing Princess Mary's 

 thanks for the Society's good wishes. 



NEV/ YEAR HONOURS 



All who are interested in Bird Protection 

 will see with satisfaction that the New Year 

 Honours include a Knighthood for Mr. Montagu 

 Sharpe, K.C., for twenty-one years Chairman 

 of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. 

 No one has done more than Mr. Sharpe to pro- 

 mote wise and practicable legislation on the 

 subject (including the five Acts obtained by the 

 Society), and he is a member of the Home Office 

 Advisory Committee. 



Bird and Tree Challenge Shield Competition 



Although the number of Schools taking part 

 in this scheme has not in all counties got back 

 to the pre-war position, there are evident signs 

 of settling down after the unrest of recent years, 

 and of reviving and growing interest in things 

 of beauty and delight (as well as of unceasing 

 utility) that v/ere, necessarily or unnecessarily, 

 neglected or flouted during the war. Nature- 

 study, it may be hoped, will now come into its 

 own in the education world ; and the original 

 and outdoor character of the Society's Bird and 

 Tree work, with its constant appeal to the 

 intelligence, the individuality, and the sympathy 

 of children, inevitably takes its place in the 

 van of the movement. 



The Essays sent in by all competing counties 

 this year are most encouraging as showing how 

 much more fully teachers and children alike 

 enter into the spirit of the Competition than 

 was the case at first. Personal observation is 

 now the rule, not the exception ; much of it is 

 extraordinarily good. Reliance on book and 

 lesson instead of on first-hand outdoor discovery 

 is much more uncommon and rarely responsible 

 for a whole paper. With greater observation 

 comes more thought, more country lore and 

 information, and, in the case of the birds, more 

 of that right feeling for, and true knowledge of, 

 the feathered folk and their ways which is 

 nearer to genuine science than all the definitions 

 of sub-species and all the collections of egg- 

 shells in the country. The main defect now to 

 be overcome is the tendency to focus all 

 observation and all note-taking on the nest, 



eggs, and young, and to neglect the habits, 

 character, and, above all, the language and 

 song of the bird itself. This is of course a 

 natural outcome of the fact that bird-nesting 

 has for generations been the British boy's one 

 concern with bird life ; and so far as interested 

 watching of nursery and growth of nestlings 

 supersedes the ignorant stupidity of nest- 

 pulling and egg-taking or egg-destruction, it is 

 eminently desirable ; but it must not be 

 accepted as the beginning and end of bird- 

 watching. In the Tree papers is discernible 

 an inclination to worry too much over measure- 

 ments and details, and diary notes of progress, 

 with corresponding inclination to forget a clear 

 description of the tree, its leaf, flower, and 

 fruit, not botanically but as they appear to 

 the child. 



On the other hand, there are many keen and 

 enthusiastic accounts of Birds and Trees, 

 dehghtful in their freshness, their spontaneity, 

 and their sympathetic and picturesque touches. 

 Many are also admirably illustrated ; but 

 large parcels of elaborate added drawings must 

 be deprecated as troublesome and expensive in 

 postage and somewhat outside the scope of the 

 Competition. 



The number and variety of Birds and Trees 

 studied may arouse the wonder of outsiders. 

 There are Schools which, distrustful perhaps 

 of novelty, cling to the most familiar of birds 

 in a way somewhat wearisome to the Judges ; 

 but more uncommon species are often on the 

 liats, the papers on th«m having been rejected 



