Bird Notes & News 



Vol. VII. ] 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

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



SUMMER, 1917. 



[No. 6. 



The Board and the Birds. 



" Some misunderstanding seems to have arisen 

 about the action of the Board of Agriculture in 

 reconunending the destruction of sparrows. It is 

 the common house-sparrow that does the harm. 

 . . . But the house-sparrow must not be confused 

 with the hedge-sparrow, which is an eminently 

 useful bird to be encouraged by all possible means 

 . . . Those who pay rewards for house-sparrows 

 or their eggs should see that they get the right 

 article. . . . The Board would entirely disapprove 

 of any general attack on small birds imder the plea 

 of sparrow -hunting." — Board of Agriculture : official 

 notice. 



So far on the path of commonsense the 

 Board of Agriculture has at last been urged. 

 It has been brought to realize that its 

 constant incitement to the setting up of 

 " sparrow " clubs in country districts, and 

 of encouraging children to slaughter birds 

 and nesthngs and to take eggs, without 

 any instruction or safeguard as to the 

 irreparable harm that may be done by 

 destroying small insect-eating birds, may 

 lead to " misunderstanding." It dimly jjer- 

 ceives that this action of a Government 

 Department at a time of food-panic, and 

 among a rural population only too ready 

 to lump all wild things together as " vermui " 

 and to destroy them with no more hesitation 

 than the beetle is trodden on, may somehow 

 lead to a " general attack on small birds." 

 For so much let Bird-Protectors be thankful ! 

 Unhappily the warning issued by the 

 Board half-way through May comes a little 

 late in the day. The genie of bird-destruc- 

 tion had been let loose from the bottle, and 

 its blighting form will never again be brought 

 back within the confines of humanity and 

 commonsense by mere talk about " mis- 

 understandings " and " disapproval." More- 

 over it is unhappUy to be noted that in its 

 own Journal for May (issued at the end 

 of that month) the formation of " sparrow " 

 clubs, with awards for adult and unfledged 

 birds and for eggs, is again repeated, and 

 the participation of children again referred 



to, without a word of this mild warning 

 And the expenditure of public rates for 

 purposes which the Board admits have led 

 to " misunderstanding " and to the killing 

 of useful birds, is approved without a 

 sohtary condition as to proof being furnished 

 that (what the Board is pleased to call) 

 " the right article " — the house-sparrow and 

 the house-sparrow only — is destroyed. 



The history of the Board of Agriculture's 

 share in the work of bird -protection and 

 bird-destruction, is a curious one when it 

 is considered that every other great nation 

 in the world bases its Bird-^jrotection laws 

 on the great value of insect-eating birds 

 to agriculture. 



In 1896, the Society for the Protection 

 of Birds began to pubhsh an Educational 

 Series of Leaflets on wild birds, and in 

 that year and the following one issued 

 twenty -four of these, including the Owls, 

 Starhng, Swallow, Tits, Kestrel, Plover, 

 and WagtaU. In August, 1897, the Board 

 of Agriculture issued the first of its leaflets 

 deaHng with birds. Between that date and 

 January, 1899, it pubHshed altogether nine 

 leaflets ; dealing respectively with Kestrel, 

 Short-eared Owl, White Owl, Tits, Green 

 Plover, Starling, Wagtail, Flycatcher, and 

 Sw^allow. The S.P.B., seeing that the Board 

 had taken up the good work the Society 

 began and was covering the same ground, 

 suspended operations. The Board brought 

 its list to an untimely end, save that in 1903 

 it issued a condemnation of the House- 

 Sparrow, with suggested rules for the 

 formation of sparrows-clubs, in 1916 one on 

 " Farm Vermin," which it made to include 

 sparrows, rooks, wood-pigeons, and larks, 

 and in the same year one on the methods 

 to be adopted for kiUing wood-pigeons. 



In all tliis time, not one leaflet setting 

 forth or suggestmg the value of birds in 



