Bird Notes and News 



Economic Ornithology. 



The Board of Agriculture have brought 

 out a new edition of their leaflet on Wag- 

 tails. The following words are now added 

 to the descriptive matter. " It will be 

 seen that these birds are of very great 

 economic value, and should everywhere 

 be carefully protected." 



Writing on Cormorants and Gulls in the 

 Pall Mall Gazette (February 6th), Mr. F. G. 

 Aflalo says : — 



" The public mind is constantly being 

 misled on this subject of the destructiveness 

 of Gulls by journalists with a passion for 

 statistics. Ordy the other day a morning 

 paper pubhshed what purported to be the 

 pictorial menu of a Sea-GuU during the year. 

 It was shown in terms of a great line of 

 barrels of herrings, 146 barrels, each con- 

 taining five hundred herrings, to a total 

 value not far short of £200. There were two 

 very obvious fallacies in this reckoning. 

 In the first place it assumed that the whole 

 of the 73,000 herrings thus consumed as fry 

 would have grown to maturity if the Gull had 

 left them alone. To put it mildly, this is 

 by no means proved ; to put it frankly, 

 it is rubbish. Moreover, this imposing 

 cartoon gave no hint of the tons of offal and 

 garbage which, to the great benefit of many 

 a harbour, these feathered scavengers con- 

 sume every year. The picture told, in fact, 

 what was not true, and suppressed what was." 



Unfortunately journaHstic effects of 

 this kind are seized on by an ignorant 

 pubUc, which prefers a startUng caricature 

 to the logic of mere facts. 



INTERNATIONAL 

 AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE. 

 Sir T. H. EUiott's report on the pro- 

 ceedings of the General Assembly of the 

 International Institute of Agriculture, 

 1911, has been issued as a ParUamentary 

 paper. The section on Bird Protection 

 states that the subject was considered on 

 the basis of an admirable report presented 



by M. E. de Miklos (Hungary), who has 

 made himself master of its practical and 

 scientific aspects. The Assembly, in view 

 of the great importance to agriculturists 

 of such protection, adopted a resolution 

 asking the twenty adhering States to 

 complete laws for the purpose, and States 

 where none yet exist to take the necessary 

 action to establish and create a general 

 f eehng in favour of the protection of useful 

 birds. The following rather curious com- 

 ment is added by Sir T. H. EUiott :— 



" In our own country, agriculturists are 

 brought to take active measures more by 

 reason of the excesf:ive multiplication of 

 certain species than from any deficiency of 

 those which are useful to them, and the Wild 

 Birds Protection Acts have been administered 

 more with a view to the preservation of 

 curious and interesting species, the existence 

 of which appeals to our higher and more 

 humane feelmgs, than to purely economic 

 considerations." 



It is however admitted that " the subject 

 is one upon which the last word has not 

 been said," and that the EngUsh farmer's 

 knowledge of the economic value of the 

 commoner species is not complete. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF BIRDS. 



Lecturing at the Royal Institution on 

 the " Childhood of Animals " (January 

 Oth, 1912), Dr. Chalmers Mitchell said it 

 was a curious fact that nearly aU young 

 birds are fed upon insects, worms, and 

 maggots, even though the adult birds 

 may be naturally seed-eaters. This, he 

 added, is interesting to remember, seeing 

 that farmers are constantly complaining of 

 damage done by birds to their crops. All 

 the summer, when the seeds are being 

 formed and it would be possible for a great 

 deal of damage to be done, the birds are 



