68 



Bird Notes and News 



Economic Ornithology. 



THE SKYLARK. 



Remarking on the recent disposition of 

 agricultural theorists to condemn the Sky- 

 lark as destructive to corn-crops, a Fellow 

 of the Society writes : 



" I have interviewed a game-dealer this 

 morning, and he informs me that he has 

 examined the insides of thousands of Larks, 

 and has never found a single grain of wheat, 

 or of any corn, nor the remains of any young 

 blade of corn ; the food in the crops con- 

 sisted of insects and weed -seeds. If farmers 

 kill Larks, why do they not examine the 

 contents of their crops ? " 



" The International Review of Agri- 

 culture," it may be added, refers to the 

 Skylark as " distinctly beneficial " ; Pro- 

 fessor Newstead, in his " Food of British 

 Birds " Supplement to the Journal of the 

 Board of Agriculture (1908), includes it 

 among species which are " occasionally 

 injurious but with the balance of utility 

 largely in their favour; " and Mr. Hammond, 

 of the Cambridge School of Agriculture, 

 sums up its character as " on the whole, 

 beneficial " [Journal of Agricultural Science, 

 1912). 



FRANCE AND HER BIRDS. 



By Mlle. R. de la Rive. 



M. Andre Godart's book " Les Jardins 

 Volieres." marks a noteworthy development 

 in Bird-Protection in France. It is familiar 

 knowledge that a strong Bird-Protection 

 party, composed of men of every circle and 

 class, statesmen, writers, sportsmen, teachers, 

 agriculturists, has been gromng up in 

 France during the last twenty years or more, 

 anxious not only to save but to rescue 

 agriculture from the dangers by which it is 

 threatened. It is not an easy task, owing 

 to the freedom left to Prefects and Depart- 

 ments. Electoral interests are thus brought 

 brought in, resulting in illegal shooting in 

 close-time, in the merciless destruction of 

 small songsters in Provence by the gunner, 

 and of migrants netted in Languedoc, and 

 in the killing of seabirds for a summer 

 pastime by visitors to the coasts of Brittany 

 and Normandy. 



M. God art, who writes with a burning 

 indignation that often reminds his readers 

 of Rusldn, first learned to love birds in his 

 youth in the old city of Angers and in the 

 Angevin marshes, and can look back with 

 bitter regret to the days when Spoonbill^ 

 Avocet, Ruff, Woodcock, Heron, Plover, 

 and Stilt were plentiful on river and lake. 

 Manj^ species then existing are now only 

 names : migratory birds come in lessening 

 numbers, and in times before the war men 

 went out with guns from Toulon and Frejus 

 to shoot the flocks of small birds that were 

 driven by stress of weather from the Alps. 

 Is it surprising that Swallows, Flycatchers, 

 and Nightjars, the natural protectors of 

 man and beast from flies and mosquitoes, 

 can no longer fulfil their mission ; that the 

 Ortolan and Wheatear, which played an 

 important part in cleansing the French vine- 

 yards from insect j)ests, are rarety to be 

 met with; and that 40 millions of francs 

 were lost by grape-growers of the Gironde in 

 1910 through the ravages of larvae ? 



The useful and interesting Owl, which 

 deserves grateful protection at the hands of 

 the corn-grower, is still persecuted, and the 

 result is to be seen in the alarming increase 

 of rats and voles. French forests, too, have 

 lost greatly in value through the decrease in 

 Woodj^eckers, Tits, and other birds whose 

 sharp beaks saved thousands of trees from 

 insect sappers. The oHve-growers of the 

 south complain bitterly of the decrease of 

 the oil -produce of their trees, and talk of 

 giving them up altogether. The fault lies 

 in the growers themselves, who shoot the 

 Warblers and Thrushes hard at work in the 

 olive-garden. 



All this is melancholy reading, but the 

 state of things can and must be coped with 

 by the spirit of energy and discipline that 

 the war has awakened in France. 



M. Godart believes more in individual 

 efi'ort and the work of bodies of men inter- 

 ested in Bird-Protection and free to act and 

 to enforce the laws, than in Government 

 regulations. The best work done so far has 

 been that of societies. The St. Hubert 

 Club has grouped the real sportsmen in the 

 interests of game-preservation ; the Societe 

 Centrale des Chasseurs has demanded and 



