84 



Bird Notes and News 



Notes. 



What is the matter with the country, or 

 with certain of the powers that be ? Is the 

 German spirit catching — not among those 

 who bear the stress and fury of the day, but 

 among those who stay at home at (more or 

 less) ease ? It would almost seem as if, 

 falling foul of the old love of the wild that 

 lies deep in the souls of Englishmen, losing 

 the grace of sanity, casting aside all cloak 

 of humanity, they had been let by sudden 

 panic to become Huns-in-little and to resolve 

 to make of the Birds the Belgians of their 

 hysterical wrath, 



4s * 4: 



First came the halfpenny papers with 

 their screams of " Kill the bird," "Eat the 

 birds " ; then the Board of Agriculture 

 with its cry for more and yet more 

 " sparrow " clubs and for the children of 

 the country to act as bird-butchers, and 

 with its messages to War Agricultural 

 Committees to destroy and kill, to evacuate 

 rookeries and pitch the rook-babies to the 

 ground, to seize upon public money to attack 

 creatures which, it would seem, they were 

 assured farmers and others would not kill 

 unless provided with money and guns out 

 of the rates as a bribe for so doing. Next 

 the extension to the end of April of the time 

 for burning gorse and heather, thus catching 

 the larks upon their nests and scaring them 

 with smoke and flame from their blackened 

 homes (happily the late season saved many 

 a bird family from this form of destruction). 

 Finally, strychnine — nominally, like the 

 notorious " sparrow " club, for house- 

 sparrows only. All this, without one word 

 of a Bird Protection Act or a Poisoned Grain 

 Clause in the Protection of Animals Act 

 which are still presumed to be laws of he 

 land. 



* * * 



Not content with taking a hand in 

 Education, the Board of Agriculture next 

 pokes a devastating finger into the War Office, 

 and requests that our soldiers, who abroad 

 record their interest in and thanks for the 

 birdlife that alleviates some dreary hours, 

 should at home be set to destroying nests 

 and eggs of " sparrows." Result, a picture 



in one of the dailies showing two tommies 

 removing a nest— from a hedge, where no 

 house-sparrow builds. A correspondent 

 writes to the R.S.P B. : 



" A member of our Naturalists' Society, 



home on leave from a camp near said 



he had seen a notice posted in camp calling 

 on soldiers ' to aid farmers by destroying 

 nests and eggs of sparrows and other 

 harmful birds.' We may imagine the effect 

 of such a notice on a camp of 50,000 towns- 

 men Except that they have learned to suck 

 pheasants' and partridges' eggs, every egg 

 is smashed at sight, and next year that 

 district will be practically birdless." But 

 it will be a good field for the student of 



insects. 



* * * 



Possibly the first madness has passed. Mr 

 Prothero has informed the country that the 

 Board of Agriculture does not wish to invite 

 disaster to crops by destroying insectivorous 

 birds. Mr. Fisher, in ironical language 

 clearly betokening the education authority, 

 has assured the House of Commons that he 

 does not consider the educational benefit 

 attaching to the decapitation of sparrows to 

 possess an}'^ positive value, " and will 

 accordingly not instruct its inclusion in the 

 curriculum of elementary schools." It 

 would have been still more satisfactory if 

 Mr. Fisher had admitted that tolerance of 

 anything of the kind is wholly impossible 

 in the modern-day school, where nature- 

 study is intended more and more to supersede 

 the mingling of superstition and barbarity 

 of a former age. Both Ministers, it will be 

 noted, seem afraid to allude to humanity as 

 such. It needs a strong man to risk being 

 called sentimental by taking his stand on 

 such a ground, especially when the battle- 

 cry is FOOD. 



* * * 



" I am afraid," writes a correspondent 

 to the R.S.P.B., " we shall suffer greatly 

 this year from pests, so many birds perished 

 in the long frost. I already see in my 

 garden many signs of coming devastations." 

 Since this was written the complaint of 

 insect-pests has become general. But what 



