116 



Bird Notes and News 



rapidity with which they multiply when 

 protected from their natural enemies. The 

 shortage was not so manifest in summer 

 when the summer migrants were with us, 

 for the numbers of the visitors were not 

 perceptibly less than usual. But now that 

 the swallows, the swifts, and the warblers 

 have gone, it is easy to see how thinned 

 have been the ranks of our native birds. 

 For this shortage there have been two causes. 

 Of these one was beyond control. The other 

 was avoidable,, and it can be averted in future. 



The unavoidable cause was the intense 

 severity of last winter. The number of 

 birds killed by cold and hunger was incalcul- 

 able and almost incredible. . . . 



... If this were the only cause of scarcity 

 the evil might not have been so bad. Careful 

 and discriminating protection durmg recent 

 years under the Wild Birds Protection Acts 

 had so encouraged valuable bird life that 

 the mischief was not irreparable. But hard 

 on the heels of this unusual winter came 

 the most determined onslaught on birds and 

 their eggs ever known, an organised and 

 successful attempt to reduce their numbcis 

 which still further depleted the sadly shaken 

 ranks. 



This onslaught was in its conception wise, 

 but in its results it was lamentable. . . . 

 The Board of Agriculture urged the formation 

 of sparrow clubs, and throughout the land 

 these clubs sprang up. The many thousands 

 of birds and eggs destroyed in a single 

 parish by a single club was an index of the 

 extent of the destruction, and, if it had 

 been — if it could have been — confined to 

 sparrows, no harm, but much good, in the 

 shape of unrifled crops, would have been 

 the result. 



What actually happened was an indis- 

 criminate destruction of small birds in 

 general. The causes were three. In the 

 first place, the suggestions of the Board of 

 Agriculture left open a loophole of which 

 advantage was promptly taken. The method 

 recommended to ensure destruction was to 

 ofEer payment for all sparrows and sparrows' 

 eggs : threepence a dozen for birds fully 

 groAvn, twopence a dozen for young sparrows, 

 and a penny a dozen for eggs. The offer of 

 money for immature birds proved to be 



disastrous. Schoolboys were delighted to 

 be set free on work which usually they had 

 to do in secret. All small birds when un- 

 fledged are much alike, and nobody was 

 going to inquire too closely whether the 

 birds captured were sparrows or not. Again, 

 many well-meaning and enthusiastic but 

 ignorant persons (ignorant, that is, on this 

 particular subject) — jjarsons, la\\'yers, 

 doctors, and others — improved upon the 

 suggestions by offering rewards (doubtless 

 believing in all honesty that they were 

 helping in a good work) for the destruction 

 not merely of sparrows, but in some cases 

 of birds of the greatest utility and in defiance 

 of the local protection orders. And, further, 

 under cover of the legitimate campaign 

 against sparrows, many countrymen, farmers, 

 smallholders, and gardeners, who hold stub- 

 bornly to the belief that birds are their 

 natural enemies, dealt destruction all round 

 with impunity. 



A Serious Outlook. 



The result of these twin causes is lament- 

 able. The larger birds, with the exception 

 of lapwings, have survived. But the scarcity 

 of smaller birds is almost appalling. Nor- 

 mally, in the late autumn, you cannot 

 enter a stubble field without disturbing 

 clouds of finches ; starlings pack in flocks 

 of countless thousands ; and lapwings are 

 to bo found in parties of several hundreds. 

 This autumn, the cloiids of finches are 

 reduced to parties of a dozen or a score ; a 

 train journey across the whole length of 

 southern England revealed but four flights 

 of starlings, and these not more than fifty or 

 sixty in number ; and if in the south you 

 see a grouping of a hundred peewits it is 

 a notable thing. 



It is a serious outlook. If the ensuing 

 ■winter is a mild one, all may be well, but 

 even in that case the policy of destruction 

 surely needs reconsideration in two respects. 

 Payment for the taking of immature birds 

 should be forbidden, and it should be im- 

 pressed upon local authorities and upon the 

 organisers of sparrow clubs far more vigor- 

 ovisly than in the Board of Agriculture 

 Leaflet No. 84 that the indiscriminate 

 destruction of small insect-eating birds 

 would be a national disaster. Truly sparrows 

 eat the ripening ears of corn, but without 



