Bird Notes and News 



123 



but it is a pleasure to note the high quality 

 of the work sent in from four of the Schools, 

 and especially the steady improvement in 

 the essays by the girls of St. John's School, 

 Keswick, who are this year awarded the 

 County Shield. These papers are all well 

 done and are marked by a very considerable 

 amount of first-hand observation, general 

 accuracy, and neatness of style. The Birds 

 are Starling, Wren, and Wagtail, not novel 

 subjects, but treated with much freshness ; 

 and the Trees, Bird-Cherry, Elm, and 

 Rhododendron, are excellently described ; 

 the last-named exotic, with others of its 

 kind, would be better replaced on the lists 

 by British hedgerow shrubs. Kirkoswald 

 takes second place by right of the artistic 

 feehng and careful attention which charac- 

 terize the pleasant papers on Trees. The 

 essays, too, were uTitten without notes. The 

 Birds here are a notably good selection — 

 Grey Wagtail, Heron, and Peewit. The 

 Greystoke set is remarkable for a prettily 

 and brightly-written account of the Redstart 

 and excellent essays on the Walnut and 

 Welhngtonia. This School also leaves the 

 commoner and oft-described kinds of birds 

 and studies, among others, Willow -Wren, 

 Greenfinch, Treecreeper, and Grey and Pied- 

 Wagtails. Cargo, the youngest of the 

 Cumberland Teams, turns out work that can 

 only be regarded as admirable, seeing that 

 it is work from a nttle School with only 

 some forty scholars. The fact that fifteen 

 of these wrote essays, including two Httle 

 people of only eight, and that the papers all 

 show genuine observation and record a 

 good array of facts recalled without aid 

 from notes, make it evident that Cargo 

 has a great deal to teach many bigger 

 Schools, and offers an encouraging lead to 

 the small ones. 



HAMPSHIRE. 



CHAiiiiENGE Shield : Ridge School. 

 Second Prize : Sholing Girls' School. 

 Thibd Prize : The Holme School, Headley. 



The papers sent in by Hampshire are, 

 as usual, so good that it has been difficult to 

 place them in order of merit and to select 

 the prize-winners. It is therefore no small 

 triumph for a village school like Ridge 

 to be for a second time awarded the 

 Challenge Sliield. The Team's work is 

 genuine and enthusiastic, and the Birds 

 chosen. Nightingale, Lapwing, and Great 

 Spotted Woodpecker, are species requiring 

 more patient watching than do the familiar 

 birds commonly selected. The Second Prize 

 goes to the Sholing Girls, whose essays are 

 marked by the fullness, perseverance, and 

 accuracy which gave the School the position 

 of Champion last year. In the essays on Trees 

 especially, the observation is extraordinarily 

 close and good. The papers from the Holme 

 School, Headley, taking Third Prize, are 

 particularly neat and are also interesting 

 owing to the quickness of the -^Titers in 

 noting things worth recounting. These three 

 schools, however, are hard-pressed by St. 

 Peter's Girls' School, Bournemouth, with 

 charmingly and sympathetically MTitten Bird 

 and Tree studies that would do credit to 

 any High School in the country ; the Birds 

 being the Stonechat, Green Woodpecker, and 

 Pied Wagtail. Not far beliind come Privett, 

 whence the youngest Team in the county 

 sends in work worthy of past records, includ- 

 ing an excellent essay on the Sparrow-hawk ; 

 Romsey C.E. Girls, with bright and pleasant 

 essays based almost entirely on good observa- 

 tion ; and St. Joseph's R.C., Christchurch, 

 conspicuous for freshness and briskness of 

 style. There is also much good Nature Study 

 in the essays from Awbridge, Bramshaw 



