Bird Notes and News 







M. Randall (Southampton), Miss E. Rolleston 

 (Harlow), Eric Searight (Cheltenham), Mrs. 

 Shepperson (Beaconsfield), Oswald Taylor 

 (Hull), Mrs. R. Taylor (Beaconsfield), Mrs. 

 Howard Vyse (Slough), Miss G. Wyndham 

 (Ventnor). 



General Business. 



The Annual Report of the Society 

 was read and approved, and arrange- 

 ments for the Annual Meeting considered. 

 It was agreed to repeat the Public- 

 schoo's Essay Competition in 1912. The 

 draft of a suggested Bill for the 

 purpose of consolidating the Wild Birds 

 Protection Acts was considered by the 

 Council, by request of the Secretary of 

 the R.S.P.C.A., but the Council regretted 

 their inability to support its proposals, 

 which did not, in their opinion, simplify 

 the existing law or meet difficulties and 

 defects experienced in the working of 

 the present Acts and Orders. Corre- 

 spondence on several subjects was laid 

 before the Council. 



Next Meeting, April 19th. 



OBITUARY. 



The work of Bird Protection has lost 

 an influential friend, and the Society a 

 distinguished Vice-President, in the death 

 of the Princess Victor of Hohenlohe- 

 Langenburg, which occurred at St. James's 

 Palace, on February 13th, 1912. Princess 

 Victor, who was the daughter of Admiral 

 of the Fleet Sir George Seymour, and 

 sister of the fifth Marquis of Hertford, 

 married, in 1861, Prince Victor (who 

 died in 1881), a nephew of Queen Victoria. 

 In 1906 Her Serene Highness became 

 Vice-President of the Royal Society for 

 the Protection of Birds, of which her 

 daughter. Princess Feodora Gleichen, well- 

 known as artist and sculptor, is also a 

 Member, 



NESTING-BOXES FOR LONDON 

 PARKS. 



Notwithstanding the interest un- 

 doubtedly taken in wild birds by residents 

 in London, and the amount of protection 

 ensured to feathered citizens by both law 

 and sentiment, no systematic effort has so 

 far been made to encourage nesting in 

 public parks and gardens by the provision 

 of Nesting-boxes. Thrushes and Black- 

 birds may be able to hold their own 

 where park-keepers and gardeners can be 

 induced to refrain from that over-pruning, 

 lopping, cutting-back and "clearing," 

 to which official gardening all over 

 England is too prone to resort ; but what 

 of the Tits, Robins, Redstarts, Wagtails, 

 and other attractive species which look 

 for holes in old wood or in mossy banks ? 

 Must they be absolutely lost to London 

 and its suburbs, where old trees grow 

 ever scarcer and cats are many ? Or 

 can they and shall they not be tempted 

 to return and to remain by the provision 

 of safe and scientifically constructed 

 Nesting-boxes such as Germany has long 

 provided in her cities and forests ? 



Thanks to the generosity of a member 

 of the R.S.P.B. (Mr. Harry CoUison), the 

 latter experiment is to be made. Some 

 hundreds of Berlepsch Nesting-boxes have 

 been offered this spring to the PubUc 

 Works Department and to the Parks 

 Department of the London County Council, 

 Among the sites selected for the placing 

 of them are Regent's Park, St. James's 

 Park, Greenwich Park, Hampton Court 

 Gardens, Richmond and Bushey Parks, 

 Kew Gardens, and ten of the County 

 Council Parks. Richmond Park already 

 possesses a large number of boxes, given 

 by the Hon. Charles Rothschild, and 

 Hyde Park had also been suppHed with as 

 many as the authorities think necessary. 



It is to be hoped that the precedent 



