Bird Notes and News 



31 



Bird and Tree Challenge Shield Competition 



As mentioned elsewhere, a most generous dona- 

 tion from a member of the Society's Council 

 has been given for the special purpose of 

 advancing and encouraging observation and 

 love of birds through the Bird and Tree Scheme. 

 The Council will therefore be able to extend the 

 Competition to counties other than those 

 already invited to take part, and to offer 

 additional County Challenge Shields. What 

 counties should be undertaken is under con- 

 sideration. 



At the invitation of the Board of Education, 

 two lectures dealing with the Society's Bird 

 and Tree Scheme will be given at Balliol Hall, 

 Oxford, on July 4th and 11th, in connection 

 with the Teachers' Course on Kural Science. 

 The lecturer will be Mr. J. R. B. Masefield, 

 M.A., a member of the Council of the 

 R.S.P.B. 



Schools entered for this year's competition 

 are reminded that the selected six essays from 

 each team should reach the Secretary, R.S.P.B., 

 23, Queen Anne's Gate, S.W., by September 

 1st. If, for special reasons, the writing or 

 local judging is delayed, the teacher is asked 

 to notify the Society. 



Among the many festivals held during the 

 last six months, all too numerous to be re- 

 ported here, may be mentioned : Coleshill, 

 where the Bucks Shield and prizes were 

 presented by Mrs. Walker ; and the head 

 master (Mr. Stubbings) remarked in his speech 

 that no subject in the whole curriculum was 

 more educational or had greater value in the 

 formation of character than Bird Work, which 

 also developed mental powers and the use of 

 language in a way no other subject did. Head- 

 bourne Worthy, where additional prizes were 

 given by Mr. W. Hunt ; Boscomhe Girls (Hamp- 

 shire Shield), where Mrs. Suckling's play, " The 

 Royal Twins," was performed, and an address 

 given by Sir Daniel JMorris ; Brathay District, 

 marked by a delightful lecture on the birds of 

 the district by Mr. Arthur Astley ; White- 

 chapel (Lanes), with a charming address by 

 the head master on " The Language of Birds" 

 Burtonwood (Lanes), where a neighbouring 

 competitor, Penketh, joined in and gave 

 special dances ; and Brinldow (Warwick), where 

 the children gave a capital entertainment, 

 with the very pleasant and practical result of a 

 donation of two guineas to the R.S.P.B. funds. 



The Sparrow Club 



"It is an extraordinary and deplorable state 

 of affairs that such time as the country is 

 spending thousands of pounds annually in 

 research work seeking to discover means of 

 checking the depredations of insect pests, and 

 fruit-growers and others are losing many 

 thousands more through the damage caused 

 by such pests, nothing has been done to stop 

 the indiscriminate slaughter of birds — Nature's 

 own remedy for the evil. In country news- 

 papers, particularly those of the fruit-growing 

 county of Kent, one continually reads of the 

 battues carried out by the rat and sparrow 

 clubs, amongst which there appears to be an 

 enthusiasm, worthy of a better cause, to beat 

 each others' records. The very fact of those 

 two species of God's creatures being bracketed 

 together in the appellation shows a want of 

 knowledge concerning their relative economic 

 values. Rats are vermin, but it would be a bold 

 person who would clasify even the humblest of 

 the feathered tribe in such a category. 



" Our protest against these slaughter clubs, 

 however, is not based on the number of sparrows 

 they destroy — for sparrows in superabundance 

 are capable of much mischief — but what we do 

 object to, and that most vigorously, is that 



under the pretence of destroying vermin an 

 incalculable amount of mischief is done by the 

 indiscriminate slaughter of bird life, for who 

 supposes for a moment that the ' sportsman ' 

 bent on filling his bag stops to see if it is a 

 sparrow he is bringing down. Indeed, it is 

 openly avowed in the lists published that 

 hundreds of blackbirds, linnets and other most 

 useful feathered friends have been destroyed. 

 Such an avowal ought to render those res- 

 ponsible subject to prosecution. It is difficult 

 to write with restraint on such wanton des- 

 truction, to say nothing about the debasing 

 effects on the minds of the juveniles who are 

 encouraged to take part in these massacres of 

 the innocents." — Fruit, Flower and Vegetable 

 Trade Journal, April 15th, 1922. 



At the annual dinner in connection with the 

 Speldhurst and District Rat and Sparrow Club, 

 in April, 1922, it was stated that during the 

 past year the number of rats destroyed was 

 2,597 ; moles, 600 ; stoats, 200 ; " birds " (no 

 species mentioned), 1,000. The Chairman of 

 the Rural District Council is " President." 



The Great Chart Club claims to have killed 

 143 " Sparrows " during 1921, and 124 " Tom- 

 tits." 



