Bird Notes and News 



111 



moment endeavouring to instruct the farmer 

 on the value to agriculture of adequate 

 wind-shields." The old English farmer 

 who planted the tree and set the sturd}-- 

 hawthorn hedge about his fields, whether 

 arable or pasture, was not a fool. 



* ♦ * 



In France the absolute need of birdlifc is, 

 and has for some time been, forcing itself 

 upon public attention. About six weeks 

 ago, writes Mrs. Burdon from Herault, on 

 October 12th, " in the Department of Ain, 

 there was a plague of caterpillars, which 

 covered the roads, stopped the tramways by 

 filling up the rails, invaded the cottages and 

 stopped the people working, who had to clear 

 their paths before they could do anything. 

 Much like the antler-moth plague in the 

 Peak district." The Council of Maine-et- 

 Loire have voted 1,700 fr. for the purchase 

 and distribution, in the public and private 

 schools of the Department, of M. Andre 

 Godard's book, " Birds Necessary to Agri- 

 culture." Each copy is accompanied with a 

 note asking the teachers to encourage the 

 spirit of bird-protection among their scholars. 



* * * 



A correspondent sends to the Society the 

 following incident arising out of a visit to 

 one of the hateful bird-markets still allowed 

 to exist in east-end thoroughfares — 



" A miserable group of birdcatchers were 

 hawking their poor wares, when to my 

 surprise one of them picked up a bag and 

 brought out a fine male Kestrel in beautiful 

 plumage, and, to cut the story short,! secured 

 the bird for a small outlay. I liberated 

 him subsequently in St. James's Park, and 

 after he had remained on the branch of a 

 plane-tree for about ten minutes he ate up 

 a piece of meat I had given him, stretched 

 himself, hopped to a higher bough, and then 

 was away. He wheeled once or twice, and 

 after that was right across the sky. A very 

 great amount of pleasure for a little sum ! " 



The Kestrel is one of the invaluable friends 

 of the farmer and is " protected " all the year 

 in London. Yet it is sold for a mere song 

 from an east-end barrow ! So much for 

 bird-protection laws and their enforcement. 



* * * 



A further instance of the attention paid 

 to this law is the advertisement which has 



appeared in a number of provincial news- 

 papers this autumn for " Wild Birds " — 

 all kinds, including, even by name, species 

 such as the Goldfinch, protected in the very 

 district where the paper circulates. If 

 this is not inciting to vvddespread breaches 

 of the law, it is hard to say what could be 

 so defined. The case having been brought 

 to the notice of police and Press, the adver 

 tising dealer writes to the Society that " my 

 purchases are strictly legal " — though the sale 

 or possession of these newly caught birds in 

 London is illegal. 



* * * 



A second Kestrel story and a second 

 instance of the ways of dealers, come from 

 other correspondents of the R.S.P.B. A 

 Brighton resident writes : " Last winter a 

 Kestrel visited this part of the town : once 

 it came down almost into the garden and 

 circled over a cat who had a young rat. The 

 cat held on without budging, and presently 

 the bird flew angrily away. The encounter 

 was close to the window. No doubt the 

 frost had made mice unobtainable in the 

 country and driven the Kestrel into the 



town." 



* * * 



The dealer in the second instance is one 

 of those gentlemen who describe themselves 

 as " naturalists " but traffic not in live birds 

 for the cage, but in dead ones for the cabinet. 

 It was noted in various ornithological papers 

 that the Green Sandpiper bred last summer in 

 a certain park in Westmorland, establishing 

 a British record. The gamekeeper there- 

 upon received the following letter, which 

 is forwarded to Bird Notes and News by Mr. 

 H. W. Robinson, M.B.O.U. 



" I see by ' British Birds ' that you had 

 the Green Sandpiper nesting with 3^ou last 

 season. If they should do so in the coming 

 season I will pay you more for the eggs than 

 any one else. I am always a buyer of any- 

 thing rare, either birds, their eggs, or animals. 

 I have had Martin cats from your comity. 

 Anything I buy is between me and the seller 

 and no one else. Shall be glad to get a line 

 at any time." 



Should the birds return to the same place, 

 their eggs, it is satisfactory to loiow, a\t11 

 be absolutely safe from persons of this 

 description. 



