Bird Notes and News 



present Committee is no doubt a result 

 of the long-continued endeavour. 



Ostensibly almost every park and 

 pleasure-ground in Great Britain is a bird- 

 sanctuary, in so far as interference with 

 birds and their nests is prohibited in a 

 volume of rules and regulations, duly 

 printed, sometimes exhibited, seldom read. 

 It may be hoped they will follow the ex- 

 ample of the Board of Works and see that 

 some reality is given to the present 

 illusion. Some few, indeed, provide nest- 

 ing-boxes (generally choosing the strong 

 and safe " Treehole " pattern invented 

 by Berlepsch for his great bird reserve 

 and mtroduced into England by the 

 R.S.P.B.) ; some, such as that at Dun- 

 fermline, select and plant fruiting shrubs ; 

 but with the majority the geranium and 

 the rhododendron, the pruning knife 

 and the broom carry the day. If the 

 keeper has a gun, must he not shoot ? 

 If the gardener has a knife, must he not 

 lop? 



Bird Sanctuaries, however, in urban 

 parks or suburbs, are and can be but 

 nature in a small way. Lord Crewe's 

 hint of the England of to-morrow suggests 

 the need for greater efforts than these. 

 Many private estates have notable sanc- 

 tuaries for wild creatures, such as Lord 

 Grey's reserve for wild fowl at Fallodon. 

 The many glorious commons and fas- 

 cinating reaches of country, such as 

 Wicken Fen and Blakeney Point, which 

 have been placed in the charge of the 

 National Trust are, or might be, sanc- 

 tuaries for wild life, if a resident 

 keeper is employed to deal straitly with 

 bird catchers and collectors. More dis- 

 tinctively on the lines of bird-protection 

 and bird-preservation for a national and 

 ornithological purpose, are the " pro- 

 tected areas " set apart by County Coun- 

 cil Orders, and the work, sometimes 



associated with these, sometimes wholly 

 separateand independent,of the Watchers' 

 Committee of the Royal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds. The object here is 

 not to attract and entertain the public. 

 As Sir Montagu Sharpe pointed out at the 

 Society's annual meeting, pubHcity is 

 the last thing wanted for the haunts of 

 rare birds guarded by its watchers. Nor 

 is the object to tempt the birds to come 

 by providing for them a miniature re- 

 production of nature in the midst of 

 artificiality. The birds are there ; have 

 made their wild homes there years without 

 count, and haunt their loved patch of 

 coast, or moor, or wood, with a pertinacity 

 which is near being their ruin when these 

 sites become known to the specimen- 

 hunter and the egg-clutcher. They ask 

 only to be allowed to remain in the 

 sanctuary of their own choosing, and 

 this is what the Society's Watchers 

 enable them to do, thus preserving, as 

 far as may be, the naturalist's heritage 

 of to-day for his children of to-morrow. 



National Sanctuaries Great Britain has 

 none. Nor does any part of the cost of 

 preserving the nation's representative 

 bird life flow from the national exchequer 

 into that of the R.S.P.B. The beautiful 

 principle of " voluntary subscriptions " 

 prevails. What has been done by some 

 other nations, nationally and by societies, 

 must be left for consideration in the next 

 number of Bird Notes and News. 



Yet, valuable as are Sanctuaries, little 

 and big, they are not the best thing. 

 Lord Crewe alluded to the garden suburb. 

 The garden suburb is admirable in its 

 way. The sanctuary is admirable in its 

 way. But no preservation of birds and 

 other wild things in reserves and en- 

 closures — necessary as it is in the case of 

 certain beasts, and even certain birds, 

 which would otherwise perish before a 



