Bird Notes and News 



15 



Wolfgang Sieberger, your servant, has con- 

 ceived a great, wicked plot against us, and 

 has bought some old rotten nets very dear, 

 to make a fowling-net out of anger and hatred 

 to us. He undertakes to rob us of the 

 freedom God has given us to fly through the 

 air, and he puts our lives in danger, a thing 

 we have not deserved of him," 



So it goes on, with the birds' wish that 

 dreadful things may happen to Wolfgang, 

 and it ends with a text from St. Matthew 

 and the subscription : " We hope to God 

 that, as many of our brothers and friends 

 escaped from him, we too, who saw his dirty 

 old nets yesterday, may also escape from 

 them. Written in our lofty home in the 

 trees with our usual quill and seal." 

 * * * 



The private collector who gives, or hopes 



to give, the coup de grace to rare species, is 



being seconded better and better every day, 



not only by the plume-hunter in other lands, 



but by the bird-fancier in our own country. 



A couple of years ago the Society had reason 



to protest against the recommendation in 



a journal of the " fancy " that the Dartford 



Warbler should be hunted down in its furzy 



home and captured for show purposes. The 

 writer described how the law was dodged 

 in order that nestlings might be secured and 

 proudly exhibited. The " fancy," like the 

 collector, is now hot on the trail of this rare 

 little bird, as the recent Crystal Palace Show 

 witnessed. Another species commended for 

 caging is the Water-Ouzel or Dipper. Deaf 

 and dumb indeed to every charm of nature, 

 and fit himself for nothing but the 



" Desert desolate 

 Of fabrics grim and gaunt and smoke- 

 begrimed," 



must the man be who has watched the Dipper 

 bobbing and curtsejang on the stones of its 

 mountain stream, or running under the 

 crystal water, or who has heard its loud 

 liquid notes, attuned to the splash and 

 gurgle of the rivulet, and who can without 

 ineffable disgust think of this fascinating 

 bird of the water and the wild, prisoned 

 \vithin bars and submitted to the appraise- 

 ment of dealers. 



Blrd-and-Tree (Arbor Day.) 



All Teams and Cadets should now be busily 

 at work preparing for the Competition of 

 1912 ; and if any School has forgotten to 

 enter, either for the Countj^ Challenge Shields 

 or in the Open Class, application should be 

 sent in at once. 



Festivals in celebration of the 1911 Com- 

 petition are still being held among competing 

 schools, but the majority took place in 

 December, January and February. The 

 great meeting at Wellingborough, when some 

 1,000 children witnessed the presentation of 

 the Inter-County and the Northants Shields 

 to the Victoria County School, Wellingborough, 

 was alluded to in the last number of Bird 

 Notes and News, as were also the Festivals 

 of the Shield-winning Schools of Bedford- 

 shire (Mogerhanger), Cumberland (Melmerby), 

 Hampshire (Sholing Girls' School), and War- 

 wickshire (Henley-in-Arden). The Bucks 

 Shield, won by the Stony Stratford (with St. 



Mary Wolverton) National School, was pre- 

 sented on December 16th, by Rev. H. Last. 



The Frome Boys' (C.E.) Team had the 

 privilege of receiving the Somerset Shield at 

 the hands of Mr. Henry Newbolt, the eminent 

 poet and novelist, who in the course of an 

 admirable address remarked that the first 

 object of Bird-and-Tree work was to teach 

 boys and girls to be alive and to see the 

 things by which they were surrounded. The 

 boy who went through a wood and saw only 

 one of ten different kinds of trees in it, and 

 noticed only a sparrow among ten different 

 kinds of birds, was only one-tenth alive. 



WoBURN Boys' School, taking second 

 place in Bedfordshire, were entertained at 

 the Town Hall -with a cinematograph show 

 of bird and insect life, through the kindness 

 of the Duchess of Bedford, who also presented 

 the awards, together with extra prizes given 



