Bird Notes and News 



3 



thickening population — represents the 

 ideal ; the ideal country that is itself 

 the sanctuary with its men and women 

 for watchers and wardens, where the 

 protection and preservation of harmless 

 wild life is the law, on the Statutes and in 



the heart of its people. It is better to 

 have a hundred cuckoos wandering over 

 the land than a hundred pinioned cuckoos 

 shut in by the walls of the men of Gotham 

 as the one place where they can live in 

 safety. 



The B.O.U. and the Egg-Collector 



In the course of his address at the annual 

 meeting of the R.S.P.B., Earl Buxton, G.C.M.G., 

 said that in one part of the work for the better 

 protection of birds, there had been, in recent 

 years, he feared, instead of advance, a backward 

 trend of a serious and even menacing character. 

 He alluded to the protection of eggs. Not 

 only was the law on this point greatly in need 

 of extending and strengthening, but it was 

 exceedingly difficult to enforce even the Hmited 

 protection now given, owing to recent growth 

 in the craze for egg-collecting, accentuated by 

 emulation and competition. He had no quarrel 

 with the moderate egg-collector, who was often 

 really interested in birds and in nature, and 

 who confined himself to taking one or two eggs 

 leaving the remainder of the clutch to hatch 

 out. But he did quarrel with those professional 

 collectors who, either for gain or in the name of 

 Science, or for any other reason, ruthlessly and 

 in a wholesale manner filched the entire clutch. 

 He especially deprecated such action in the 

 case of rare birds. Some of these collectors 

 did not appear to care by what means they 

 obtained the eggs, nor did they pay any heed 

 to the law. 



Lord Buxton proceeded to instance some 

 recent cases cited by the British Ornithologists 

 Club in their own " Bulletin," No. CCLXI. It 

 was there stated that on March 23rd, 1921, 

 after the Oological Club Dinner, a member 

 of the club displayed — presumably to admiring 

 and probably envious colleagues — a " remark- 

 able exhibit," consisting of 40 clutches of the 

 Red-backed Shrike, all taken in one season, 

 being the full layings throughout one season 

 of no fewer than forty pairs of birds. It 

 appeared also that the same person had already 

 collected 500 separate nests of the same species 

 at various times. Another collector exhibited 

 on the same occasion a series of 24 clutches 

 of the Spotted Flycatcher's eggs, stated to be 

 from Kent, Radnor, and elsewhere. A third 



member of the Club showed a series of 14 

 clutches of the Pied Flycatcher, from North- 

 umberland and Radnor. In his (Lord Buxton's) 

 view the taking of clutches of eggs in this 

 deliberate and wholesale way was altogether a 

 wrong thing, and he found it difficult to believe 

 that any additional or adequate scientific 

 advantage was to be gained, or that any 

 sufficient scientific justification could be made 

 out for such action. The eggs of both the Pied 

 and the Spotted Flycatcher were protected in 

 Radnor and Kent, and the eggs of the Red- 

 backed Shrike were protected in 24 counties. 

 It would appear, therefore, that there must 

 have been distinct infringement of the law by 

 the collector or his agent. Moreover, the 

 action of collectors who did these things under 

 the name of " Oology " constituted a direct 

 encouragement, nay, a temptation, to the 

 trading collector and dealer to rob nests and to 

 trouble httle about the law. 



He would therefore ask the members of the 

 British Ornithologists Union (and he asked in 

 all friendliness, for he had great admiration 

 and respect for ornithologists as a body) how 

 they could justify these depredations and the 

 example they set. Public opinion must be 

 expressed. Thanks to public opinion Egrets 

 were being saved from extermination abroad, 

 and pubUc opinion would, he believed, insist 

 on the law being observed and strengthened 

 in order to prevent wild birds of the United 

 Kingdom from being exploited or possibly 

 exterminated, or our bird life impoverished, 

 by collectors, whoever they might be. 



(A letter on the subject, addressed to the 

 Secretary, British Ornithologists Union, by 

 Lord Buxton, was read at a meeting of the 

 Committee of the Union held on March 8th, 

 the day of the Annual Meeting ; and this, with 

 the ensuing correspondence, will appear in the 

 Society's Annual Report.) 



