60 



Bird Notes and News 



notes on the wings of nestlings and the 

 history of flightless birds ; these are some 

 of the subjects treated in Mr. Pycraft's 

 attractive volume. The publishers have 

 seconded the attractions of science thus 

 happily made alluring by the addition of 

 illustrations at once helpful and beautiful. 

 It is enough to quote Mr. Pycraft's 

 comment : " Where birds are concerned, 

 few artists in the past, and very few in 

 the present, have shown any ability to 

 combine accuracy in drawing with in- 

 genuity of composition and faithfulness 

 in colouring. Mr. Green has shown this 

 rare combination." The pictorial charm 

 of Mr. Green's art is already well known 

 to the public. 



Our Birds : their Haunts and Nests 

 (T. N. FouHs), First and Second Series, 

 contain a series of photographs, chiefly 

 of nests and young birds, by Charles 

 Reid, of Wishaw, with brief accompany- 

 ing letterpress. Mr. Reid's skill is well 

 known, and the little books are well and 

 attractively got up. 



St. Rube, and other Bird Stories, by 

 Isa J. Postgate (The Faith Press, London, 

 W.C.) consists of a series of legends and 

 stories of saints, birds and men, such as 

 are associated with Miss Postgate's fanci- 

 ful and bird-loving pen, and should be 

 an attractive book for children. Illus- 

 trated by Elsie Kohler. 



Bird and Tree Challenge Shield Competition 



The Elementary Schools are now in 

 a fair way of recovery, it may be hoped, 

 from the effects of the war, and from 

 the generally unsettled state of things 

 that followed the war and diverted the 

 attention of Teachers, and Managers 

 also, from the question of Education 

 pure and simple. With the new trend 

 in educational principles ; the new 

 desire to stimulate agriculture (if the 

 country is to be fed) and to make the 

 country a desirable place to live in (if 

 agriculture is to survive) ; and with the 

 recognition at long last of the outstanding 

 fact that nature-study cannot be dis- 

 comiected from Nature and administered 

 in slabs from manuals ; the Society's 

 prescience in starting its Bird and Tree 

 Scheme becomes patent. The meetings at 

 Oxford this summer, stamping the ap- 

 proval of the Board of Education upon 

 methods already highly approved by 

 Education Directors in every County 

 where they have been worked, have co- 

 incided with the generous gift, and sub- 

 sequent bequest, of the late Mr. Hudson, 

 which have not only rendered an exten- 

 sion of the work financially possible, but 

 have made clear the fact that this training 

 of the children is the thing he would most 

 desire to honour his memory and fulfil 

 his hopes. 



The issue of a new booklet on the 

 scheme, containing a portrait of Mr. 

 Hudson and particulars of the Com- 

 petition, will, it is expected, make it 

 widely known and adopted. Though 

 limited by the Society to Elementary 

 Schools, the central idea is readily adapt- 

 able to Secondar}^ and Private Schools. 



A large number of Schools new to the 

 Competition enter this year ; but a cer- 

 tain number of old Competitors are 

 absent for one reason or another. A new 

 county, Surrey, had been invited to join 

 in, but unfortunately does not provide 

 a sufficient number of Teams to warrant 

 the award of a County Shield this year. 

 After this preliminary canter no doubt 

 the scheme will be better known, and 

 more courage on the part of Teachers 

 and Schools should lead to a success 

 second to that of no county. New work 

 can, naturally, rarely vie with that of 

 Schools well accustomed to a procedure 

 fresh and strange in the first instance. 

 Children have been used for generations 

 to having their educational food cut up 

 and administered to them in a certain 

 place, between certain hours of the day. 

 Essay competitions have long been identi- 

 fied with verbal reproductions (as far as 

 possible) of lesson or lecture, or with 

 compositions on fancy subjects, where 



