Bird Notes and News 



103 



talk about all the living and growing things 

 seen on the way ; his knowledge and love 

 of nature began in his school days. 



Mr. F. F. Neill, a BeKast teacher, writes 

 to the R.S.P.B. :— 



" Surely old England will never be reduced 

 so low that we must order the wholesale 

 slaughter of any species of our feathered 

 friends. Compare the campaign in a certain 

 English daily with the words of the Belfast 

 Evening Telegra2}h, which said in the cold 

 weather, ' Remember the sparroAvs ; give 

 them a crumb ; the cold Aveather will do 

 enough harm without our killing them.' The 

 Sparrow Club is unknown here, and the 

 country people treat the birds as the friends 

 and not the enemies of man. 



" I do not know very much about English 

 children, but I know that the Irish boj^s 

 and girls are naturally fond of birds. I have 

 noted in spring that the boys took quite 

 a fatherly interest in birds and their nests 

 that they found on their way to and from 

 school. I teach my boys to love all birds, 

 and I do not think one of them would take 

 even an egg from a nest. During winter 

 they feed the feathered folic with scraps 

 of food useless for human consumption, 

 knowing well, for instance, that the starling 

 loves a bit of bacon rind and gi\ang him 

 what they leave at breakfast. 



" In our church in the city Dr. Macmillan 

 gives the children an address on the birds 

 and flowers periodically : one of the finest 

 addresses I have heard was based on the 

 sentence, ' Christ watches at the deathbed 

 of a sparrow,' and it went far in inculcating 

 the principles of humanity and justice to 

 the feathered world. 



" In the enclosed leaflet you will notice 

 with pleasure that our Department of 

 Agriculture recommends the preservation 

 rather than the destruction of birds." 



(Leaflet No. 10, on " Wireworm," issued 

 February, 1916, by the Department of 

 Agriculture and Technical Instruction for 

 Ireland, m discussing preventive and reme- 

 dial measures, says : " Birds which follow 

 the plough — especially starlmgs, gulls, and 

 lapwings — do great service by eating wire- 

 worm, and they should be protected and 

 encouraged." 



THE SCHOOL SNIPE. 



The Snipe has been a favourite subject 

 with such Bird-and-Tree Cadets as are 

 fortunate enough to be able to study that 

 bird of the marshes, since a Norfolk boy 

 achieved fame by certain novel observations. 

 But never before has a record been furnished 

 of a Snipe that came to school, apparently 

 with the object either of being " observed " 

 or in the execution of duty in Home Defence. 

 The following interesting note comes from 

 JMr. H. W. Clarke, head master of Necton 

 School, Norfolk, appended to a paper in 

 the Snipe from one of his bo3^s. 



" Separated from the Infants' School by 

 a very narrow belt of garden and a low hedge 

 is a marshy field. In this field a pair of 

 Snipe apparently had their nest, though the 

 nest itself could never be found by an}^ of us. 

 Regularly every day the two birds could be 

 seen zigzagging around, uttering their harsh 

 ' clicking noise ' (as the boy calls it) as they 

 rose from the ground. This, which seems 

 to be their only vocal call, was replaced by 

 the ' Bleatmg ' when they were well on the 

 wing. Presently one bird alone was seen, 

 and this one came regularly every day and 

 stood for long periods silent on the top of a 

 chimneypot-shaped ventilator on the school- 

 house. After long periods of silence it 

 would utter its ' tick-tack ' several times, 

 and then there would be another long silence! 

 In the early morning it would, however, 

 ' tick-tack ' continuously for haK an hour or 

 more. In fact, as we had our windows open 

 and the bird was not twenty yards away, 

 its insistent call became quite a nuisance. 



" In the evening agam the call was often 

 repeated as the bird stood on its observation 

 post. 



'' Not more than thirty feet from the place 

 where the bird stood is a suing (possibly 

 rendered invisible by the trees to which 

 it is attached), and on this m,y children 

 have swung for long periods while the bird 

 monotonously tick-tacked without taking the 

 slightest notice of their \*icimt3\ That we 

 were about at all times and that over 130 

 children were present in school hours seemed 

 to make no difference. 



" While standing on the ventilator it 

 kept turning its head in every direction 

 as if acting as a ' Look out.' Whenever it 



