Bird Notes and News 



87 



heavy trouble and expense devolving on 

 her, the total receipts being sent to the 



Society. 



* * * 



The Duchess of Portland, presiding at the 

 Serlby Hall meeting, called attention to many 

 activities of the Society, notably the Brean 

 Down Reserve and the Lighthouse fund ; 

 and Viscountess Gahvay must have touched 

 many hearts by her appeal to her hearers 

 to look after the safety and welfare of the 

 little everyday birds familiar to all of them. 

 Let them, she urged, regard themselves as 

 trustees of the birds, responsible for the 

 wellbeing of those in their own vicinity, 

 and make it part of their ordinary country 

 life to care for them, particularly in wintry 



weather. 



* * * 



The imperative need for such schemes as 

 the R.S.P.B. Bird-and-Tree Competitions is 

 shown by complaints raised in more quarters 

 than one of the destruction of plants, insects, 

 and birds' eggs promoted by certain forms 

 of so-called " nature-study " in schools. 

 Some of the public schools permit, or en- 

 courage, boys to collect rare eggs and rare 

 butterflies, an " oologist " or " entomologist" 

 among the masters leading the way. Now 

 the elementary scholars are, it is alleged, 

 being taken for nature-rambles, in which the 

 predatory instincts of the child are nurtured 

 under the name of science ; and the destruc- 

 tive young savage is merely transformed into 

 the destructive young prig. " Keep the 

 children ignorant ; keep their eyes closed 

 and their ears stopped, for if they once know 

 and recognize beauty and rarity they will 

 of course destroy it ! " is the anxious cry. 

 It is not an unnatural one, in view of the 

 haste with which the vandal-public rush 

 in to ruin for ever the charm of a beauty- 

 spot to which train or tramcar conducts 



them. But there is surely another remedy 

 than ignorance ; and the sooner county 

 education authorities wake to the fact the 

 better. The tree of knowledge is not of 

 necessity a upas-tree blasting the life and 

 beauty beneath its shade. 



« * « 



A correspondent sends a photograph- 

 illustration from one of the dailies, showing 

 a group of men of what is called the " v.'orking 

 class " loitering by an aviary in one of the 

 London parks ; to the aviary railings are 

 fastened a number of small cages tied up 

 in the familiar black cloth, wherein are 

 prisoned captive birds. The letterpress ex- 

 plains that the east-end working-men being 

 " very fond " of song-birds, take their " pets" 

 to receive lessons from those in the aviary. 

 "I always failed to see before," says the 

 Societj^'s correspondent, " why these aviaries 

 of little English birds were needed, as proper 

 provision for nesting-places and food in the 

 parks would do much more to provide 

 attractive bird-life. The working-man's 

 ' fondness ' is for the money the birds win at 

 the public-house, and I still fail to see why 

 our parks should act as feeders for this 

 business." 



The majority of people nowadays have 

 some foreign correspondence, consigning the 

 envelopes to the waste-paper basket, and 

 many will be glad to hear how they may turn 

 this wasted material to account for the 

 benefit of the Birds. A Member of the 

 Society kindly undertakes to dispose of all 

 foreigh stamps, common or rare, and thereby 

 raise a small special fund ; " the results may 

 not be great, but every little helps.' Any 

 such stamps sent to the Secretary of the 

 R.S.P.B., at 23, Queen Anne's Gate, will 

 accordingly be forwarded to Miss Wiltshire. 



