Bird Notes and News 



9a 



must have fair pay in order to protect 

 them to some extent from the temptation 

 of bribes, and members of our Watchers 

 Committee visit their stations from time 

 to time to inspect and judge actual 

 results. . . . 



" Clearly, simple prohibition on paper by 

 county council orders is useful only as 

 affording possibility of conviction where 

 offenders are caught in the act. As de- 

 terrents they avail nothing for persons of 

 this class, and unless carefully worded 

 may indeed serve to advertise the presence 

 of rare species. A law to deal with possession 



and the possessor is necessary, as well as 

 a strong public opinion which shall cause 

 these collectors to be held in the contempt 

 they deserve. One proposal as to the 

 kind of law needed has been made by 

 Mr. W. H. Hudson in " Birds and Man " : ! 

 " There Ls really only one way out of the 

 difficulty — one remedy for an evil which 

 grows in spite of penalties and public 

 opinion — namely, a law to forbid the making 

 of collections of British birds by private 

 persons. . . . Without such a law it has 

 now become impossible to save the best 

 of our wild bird life.' " 



Books Received. 



Adventures among Birds. By W. H. 



Hudson (Hutchinson and Co., 10/6). Every 

 bird-lover, no less than every lover of litera- 

 ture, rejoices to hear of a new book by Mr. 

 Hudson. In days when so much is written 

 on birds, birds from the zoologist's point of 

 view, from the collector's, the photographer's, 

 the fruit-grower's — ^the reader comes with 

 gladness and refreshment to the writer who 

 writes as no one else can do about birds them- 

 selves, and who moves confidently, as a 

 reviewer puts it, in " that realm which is 

 extraordinarily little knoAvn to us, that of 

 the bright, elusive, intelligent mind of birds." 

 Members of the R.S.P.B. know not only the 

 witchery of Mr. Hudson's style, and the 

 interest of the things he has to tell, but that 

 every chapter in which he treats of bird- 

 life, directly or indirectly advances the cause 

 of Bird Protection. It is not necessary, nor 

 perhaps fitting in this place, to say more. 

 The book is prefaced by a recent portrait 

 of the Author. 



The food of some British Wild Birds. 

 By Walter E. Collinge, M.Sc, etc. (Dulau 

 and Co.). Though some of Mr. CoUinge's 

 observations are distinctly good, as for ex- 

 ample the stress he lays in an introductory 

 chapter on the importance of careful and 



accurate field observation — ^it cannot be said 

 that his book greatly advances knowledge 

 on this debated subject. Numerous other 

 writers are quoted, and the crops of 3,312 

 birds have been examined. It is obvious, 

 however, that books %Aithout end might be 

 compiled, and wholly different conclusions 

 arrived at, by quoting extracts even from the 

 same writers, not to mention solutions culled 

 from general newspaper and private corres- 

 pondence ; while the laboratory method 

 needs extensive and systematic and impartial 

 investigation before it can yield anything 

 approaching positive proof. Mr. Collinge is 

 doubtless anxious to be both impartial and 

 scientific in his records, but he is apt to make 

 too sweeping generalizations, and sometimes 

 writes as though the whole of Britain was 

 a soft-fruit orchard. " The Columbidae are 

 all injurious and should be destroyed " 

 requires some modification ; and the com- 

 ment on the Blackcap Warbler " In small 

 numbers it probably does more good than 

 harm, but any attempt at protection will 

 justify fruit-growers in taking vigorous 

 measures for extermination " is a rather 

 loose style of logic for a professedlj^ scientific 

 manual. The statements referring to the 

 Jackdaw on pages 54 and 88 are contra- 

 dictory ; and many country residents aatIII 

 find it hard to reconcile lanes stre\\'n with 

 wTccked nests and eggs with the assertion 

 that " village boys no longer dare go on bird- 

 nesting expeditions," and will wonder if 

 there is no other method than destruction 

 for combating " the consequent ignorance 

 concerning birds amongst the rising genera- 



