Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Vol. X.] 



SPRING. 1922. 



iNo. 1. 



Bird Sanctuaries 



In a delightful paper read before the 

 Society of Literature the other day, Lord 

 Crewe gave a somewhat melancholy fore- 

 cast of the future of rural England : an 

 England, not of luxuriant hedgerows, 

 starred with flowers and now white with 

 a bridal veil of blackthorn or a snowy 

 robe of may, now fragrant with wild roses 

 and woodbine, and now a wild tangle of 

 bramble with black and crimson fruit, or 

 of grey " old man's beard " flung over 

 hawthorn or privet ; not of deep narrow 

 lanes overhung with trees, or of wood- 

 lands where gnarled oaks and great 

 spreading beeches reigning among birch 

 and ash, afford abundant breeding-holes 

 and insect provender for woodpeckers, 

 wryneck, and tit ; not stretches of green 

 parkland, and broad roads with wide 

 borders of grass and bracken and tall 

 weeds. But an England where small 

 holdings, intensive farming, scientific 

 forestry, straight motor roads, and neat 

 paths, will present something like a 

 ' ' gigantic garden suburb . " In this coming 

 time it may be, as Lord Crewe suggested, 

 Bird Sanctuaries, and trust properties 

 like Box Hill, will be the only alternatives 

 to gravel paths and tar-mac roads. 



The present outburst of interest in 

 Sanctuaries for Birds is an indication 

 tb("t there are many people who at least 

 not wish the wild birds of England to 

 J.. - sh in the general economic " tidying- 

 u^T," partitioning of land, and harnessing 



of Nature, which is the ideal of some 

 Adam Smiths and Buckles of to-day. 

 Few Departmental Committees have been 

 welcomed with the enthusiasm accorded 

 to that set up by H.M. Board of Works 

 (through the instrumentality of Lord 

 Crawford) to advise as to the formation 

 of Bird Sanctuaries in the Koyal Parks, 

 and it is characteristic of the public 

 delight in these smaller amenities that 

 of all the important measures for the 

 preservation of bird life alluded to at 

 the annual meeting of the Royal Society 

 for the Protection of Birds, it was these 

 London Sanctuaries, spoken of by Lord 

 Buxton, that the London newspapers 

 pitched on for their reports. 



The movement can hardly be called 

 new. Years ago Mr. W. H. Hudson 

 directed attention to the lost opportunity 

 in the Parks, to the abundant and charm- 

 ing bird life ready to inhabit them and 

 to the unceasing cutting and sweeping 

 and weeding and gravelling which make 

 them impossible as habitations. Again 

 and again the Society has appealed, in 

 Bird Notes and News, in letters to the 

 Press, in letters to officialdom, for a little 

 of nature's self to be left in public parks, 

 a wild corner for wild things to dwell in, 

 the planting of berried shrubs that would 

 afEord food to birds, the policy of en- 

 couraging and protecting the wild birds 

 instead of providing detestable little 

 " aviaries " for confining them. The 



