Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 :: :: FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS :: :: 



Vol VII. ] 



SPRING, 1917. 



[No. 5. 



Food-Crops and Birds. 



" It cannot be too widely known at the 

 present time that any general or indis- 

 criminate destruction of Wild Birds would 

 be fraught with grave danger to the Food of 

 the People. 



" In every country and every district 

 where Birds have been systematically 

 destroyed, the result has been the same : 

 (1) insect and vermin plagues, (2) serious 

 losses to crops of all kinds, (3) failure of man 

 to deal with the plagues, (4) efforts to bring 

 back the Birds." — Birds, Insects, and Crops. 



The startling ignorance manifested of late 

 by many persons concerning the habits and 

 character of even the commonest Wild 

 Birds, arises, no doubt, out of that policy of 

 culpable indolence and laissez faire which 

 was before the War sapping the strength of 

 the British nation and which led to its un- 

 preparedness for the struggle in which it is 

 now engaged. Educationahsts, spending 

 their millions a year. Boards and Chambers 

 of Agriculture, with ample staffs and ample 

 means, have ahke done next to nothing to 

 teach the people of the coimtry the economic 

 position of the Wild Bird, and its place and 

 work in the scheme of Nature. 



The result to-day is that the food-crops 

 on which the nation so largely depends are 

 more or less at the mercy of persons whose 

 plentiful lack of knowledge is bolstered up 

 by panic, and whose good intentions towards 

 their fellows are quickening the very catas- 

 trophe they imagine they are warding off. 

 " Kill the birds " is shrieked in the papers 



by correspondents possessed of no screed 

 of ornithological or entomological informa- 

 tion, but who have seen or heard that 

 " birds " eat fish or com or fruit. " Start 

 a ' sparrow '-club " is the cry of the village 

 pubHcan or smallholder, who supposes that 

 the popular way to deal with a difficult 

 problem is to send children out into the 

 fields and lanes to destroy every nest, bird, 

 and egg of the invaluable insect-eating 

 species they find there. 



Thus the way is being prepared for insect 

 plagues and devastations to smother the land 

 and to devour every green thing. 



The Royal Society for the Protection of 

 Birds has prepared a special Leaflet, " Birds, 

 Insects, and Crops," to deal with this 

 question, and asks the help of all interested, 

 not only in the protection of Birds, but in 

 the protection of Food-crops, in its circula- 

 tion. It is hoped that this Leaflet will 

 be put into the hands of workers on the 

 land throughout the country, and be 

 brought to the notice of all Agricultural 

 War Committees, members of County and 

 Parish Councils, School-teachers, and clergy. 

 It is further hoped that sympathisers in this 

 work will assist with special donations 

 towards the cost, extra heavy at this time, 

 of printing and circulating the many thou- 

 sand copies which will be needed if the 

 desired end is to be obtained. 



