Bird Notes and News 



43 



porated in the Tarifi Act now before the 

 Legislatures, putting the burden of proof of 

 legitimate ownership of all prohibited plumage 

 on the possessor. If Aigrettes were allowed 

 entry the amendment, as applied to this article, 

 would be nullified and result in fraudulent 

 practices. 



" Moreover, the sale, etc., of Aigrette 

 feathers is prohibited under the Migratory Bird 

 Act, and also by a large majority of the States 

 of the Union under their own State laws. 



" It is not the intention of this Committee 

 to raise any objections to legitimate trading 

 with another country or take any action detri- 

 mental to the best interests of the Millinery 

 Trade, but it feels that any alteration in the 

 existing law is to be deprecated ; and I venture 

 to think that if the Treasury Department, the 

 Department of Agriculture, Mr. Pearson of the 

 Audubon Society, and Dr. Hornaday of the 

 Wild Life Protection Fund, were consulted, 

 this opinion would be endorsed." 



Economic Ornithology 



FARMERS AND BIRD-CATCHERS 



The agricultural correspondent of the Daily 

 Telegraph writes (August 10th, 1922) : — 



" Farmers are complaining about townsmen 

 haunting their hedgerows and catching Gold- 

 finches and Brown Linnets. These birds feed 

 themselves mainly on charlock, and the 

 Goldfinch has a partiality for the seeds of 

 thistles and other weeds. The Bullfinch, 

 another bird captured by the townsman, 

 loves dock-seeds. These birds materially help 

 to keep down weeds among growing crops." 



Farmers should insist upon Goldfinches 

 and Linnets being protected all the year 

 by their County Council Order. 



FRUIT-BLOSSOMS AND BIRDS 



Mr. John Weathers writes to the Field 

 (August 19th, 1922), from Isleworth :— 



" It is astonishing what ignorance still 

 prevails amongst market gardeners and farmers 

 (and through them amongst the public 

 generally) in regard to the value of birds to 

 cultivated crops. Just as, years ago, the now 

 highly-esteemed Honey Bee was looked upon 

 as an enemy of the fruit-grower, so are most 

 birds to-day— more especially the Bullfinch, 

 Chaffinch, Rook, Starling and Wood Pigeon. 

 Scarcely a year passes but some superficial 

 observer will write to some paper and make a 

 grievous charge against some bird or another, 

 supported by what at first sight appears to 

 be convincing evidence. A Wood Pigeon or 

 Starling is shot in a plum or apple plantation, 

 and when cut open any number of fruit buds 

 may be found in the crop. Surely no further 

 evidence is needed. Those buds were potential 

 fruit and a loss, therefore, to the fruit-grower. 



" Now the point arises, is the mere presence 

 of flower buds or other vegetable buds in the 



crop of a bird sufficient evidence in itself to 

 justify the destruction of the bird ? What 

 evidence is there to prove that in addition to 

 the fruit buds there were not also maggots 

 or caterpillars that were preying upon them 

 at the very time when the bird gobbled up 

 bud and caterpillar together ? But, it will 

 be asked, if maggots or caterpillars were on 

 the buds and were swallowed by the birds, 

 should they not be as easily discovered in 

 the bird's crop as the flower buds ? But 

 maggots and buds are quite different in texture 

 and composition, and the maggots are much 

 more quickly digested inside the bird than 

 the tougher buds. This does not appear to 

 have occurred even to those well-known friends 

 of birds who maintain that birds are the friends, 

 not the foes, of farmers and gardeners.* 



" If this question of the rapid digestion 

 of maggots and caterpillars and the compara- 

 tively slow digestion of fruit buds in the 

 stomachs of birds were more carefully 

 investigated, it is more than probable that 

 most birds would be looked upon with greater 

 favour by growers than they are at present. 

 If a maggot is attacking a fruit bud, the bird 

 on the look-out for food cannot easily avoid 

 taking bud and maggot together. 



" While it is, of course, unfortunate that 

 any good fruit buds should be destroyed by 

 birds when preying upon maggots, the loss in 

 this direction is a mere bagatelle in comparison 

 with the good that is done by the destruction 

 of the caterpillars. There are millions of fruit 

 blossoms every year that escape both birds 

 and caterpillars, yet they never develop into 

 mature fruits. Speaking as a fruit-grower 

 with as much to lose or gain as others from 



* This important fact was pointed out by Mr. W. H. 

 Hudson, but is ignored by the majority of observers 

 and invastigatora. 



