Bird Notes and News 



97 



Watchers' Committee. 



The report of the work done by the 

 Watchers of the Society during the breeding- 

 season was presented. 



General Business. 

 Brigadier-General H. Page Croft, M.P., 

 C.M.G., was elected a member of the Comicil 

 of the Society.— The publication of 100,000 

 copies of the leaflet, " Birds, Insects, and 

 Crops," and the continued demand for it, 

 was reported ; also the sending of over a 

 thousand circular letters to local authorities 

 on the subject of the economic value of 

 birds and the abuse of " Sparrow-clubs," 

 and of numerous letters to the Press, the 

 clergy, and others. Thanks were accorded 

 to writers in the Press, and to societies, 

 clergy and ministers of various denominations, 

 school-teachers, and members of the Society, 

 and others who had given special help to the 

 movement. — The use of poisoned grain in a 

 Norfolk parish for killing birds had been 

 actively contested by a Fellow of the Society, 

 and the Parish Council had been informed 

 by the ^Ministry of Food that such a use of 

 grain could not be allowed. — It was further 

 reported that the Home OfiBce had required 

 the Stoke D'Abernon Sparrow Club to reduce 

 its list of birds to be killed from '" all species " 

 save four, to seven. — Correspondence with 

 reference to bird-caging, destruction of 

 Owls at Beverley, and other matters, was 

 considered. 



BIRDS AT THE LIGHTHOUSE. 



The use by migratory birds of the perches 

 and rests erected by the Society at certain 

 lighthouses continues to bear witness to the 

 success of this scheme for saving weary Kttle 

 migrants at the time of their arrival in this 

 country. From St. Catherine's, the Caskets, 



and the South Bishop, reports of the principal 

 keepers and others agree in stating that a 

 large number of birds made use of the rests 

 in the migration season, especialty in misty 

 or drizzly weather, between 11 p.m. and 

 dawn. Among the birds noted were a great 

 many Fl3^catchers, A\Tieatears, Redstarts, 

 Blackcaps, and other Warblers, Thrushes, 

 Blackbirds, Ring-Ouzels, Chaffinches, Star- 

 lings. A few Woodcock and Landrails were 

 killed at the South Bishop by striking the 

 lantern. 



At St. Catherine's, not only were the 

 ladder-rests well appreciated, but a pair of 

 Swallows reared their young in the engine- 

 room. 



The Spurn Light was not lit, the area being 

 in military occupation. 



OBITUARY. 



The Earl of Haddington, whose death in 

 his ninetieth year deprives Scotland of her 

 oldest representative Peer, and East Lothian 

 of an ideal lord of the manor and constant 

 worker for the public good, was a Fellow of 

 the R.S.P.B. and a firm champion of birds 

 and their utilit}' on the land. He had been 

 associated with the Society since 1902. 



Second-Lieutenant Godfrey Vassal Webster, 

 Grenadier Guards, killed in action in August, 

 was one of the yoiuiger students of 

 ornithology from whom much was hoped. 

 He was the writer of the very clever essay 

 on " The Flight of Birds " which won the 

 Society's Public School Medal in 1915 and was 

 printed in Bird Notes and Neivs, June 1916, 

 and he also won the Second Prize in the pre- 

 vious year for an essay on " Our Summer 

 ^Migrants " He was keenly interested in the 

 protection of birds. Lieut. Webster was the 

 only son of Captain Sir Augustus Webster, 

 Bart, of Battle Abbey, Sussex, was bom in 



