86 



Bird Notes and News 



Not 



The statistics of prosecutions under the 

 Wild Birds Protection Acts, given else- 

 where, is an interesting study. No one 

 can for a moment imagine that these 

 represent a tenth, or a fiftieth, of the 

 ofiEences committed. Various forms of 

 destruction of bird life escape the net of 

 the Acts, but infinitely more swim merrily 

 in and out of the meshes ; and the pro- 

 portion of the figures for the counties, all 

 strangely small when the illegal destruc- 

 tion of bird life by all classes and ages of 

 persons is considered, is probably in 

 inverse ratio to the actual breaches of the 

 law in the several counties, and represents 

 not comparative criminality but the 

 comparative energy of the authorities. 

 The nestUngs catapulted or stoned to 

 death, the small birds illegally caught, the 

 eggs illegally taken, in one county : would 

 they not furnish cause for 137 prosecu- 

 tions in one county ? It is the usual 

 thing to blame the laws. There are at 

 least four factors : (1) the complications 

 and exceptions and involutions of the 

 law ; (2) want of knowledge and inaction 

 on the part of the police ; (3) absence of 

 education on the matter ; (4 and chiefest) 

 the apathy of the public. 



* * * 



The Bird Protection Society of South 

 Africa is making steady progress and the 

 prospects of wild birds in that wide land 

 have grown very much brighter during 

 the last twelvemonth, thanks to such men 

 as Professor Warren, and Mr. Fitz- 

 Simons. The latter writes, under date 

 23rd March, 1923 :— 



" We are constantly getting the various divisional 

 Councils to protect birds in their areas or divisions, 

 and we are now aiming at getting one Ordinance passed 

 by Parhament to cover all the Union of South Africa 

 and to make it a permanent measure. The Govern- 

 ment is being petitioned to introduce legislation for 

 the protection of insectivorous and all other wild birds 

 useful or not injurious to agriculture in the Union. 

 All the S.P.C.A. Societies are backing me up." 



Mr. FitzSimons has a work in the press 

 on South African birds. 



* * * 



It is somewhat curious that two such 

 contrasting pictures of Italy and her wild 



es 



birds should be presented at the same 

 time as, on the one hand, that from Mr. 

 Watson and Miss Pertz, dealing with the 

 wholesale destruction of birds (both for 

 eating and for caging) by the " rogoli " 

 or " roccoli," with the horrible additional 

 brutality of blinding birds ; and on the 

 other hand, the idylhc scene drawn by 

 Miss Trevelyan. Mr. H. D. Astley and 

 other writers long since described the 

 roccoli and raised a protest which it was 

 vainly hoped might have some influence 

 with the Italian Government. Miss Tre- 

 velyan writes as a lover of the fair country 

 in which her father, Dr. G. M. Trevelyan, 

 has taken so deep an interest, and of 

 which her grandmother, Mrs. Humphry 

 Ward, has in her novels given such 

 brilliant glimpses. As bird-student she 

 says : — 



" There were more birds in Italy than I had hoped 

 for. There were Whitethroats, Swallows, Martins, 

 Swifts, Serins, Pied Flycatchers, Redstarts, Hawks, 

 Blackbirds, and of course Nightingales. The Thrush 

 does not sing there as he does in England, and though 

 there are plenty of Chiffchafis I never heard a WiUow- 

 Wren. In Rome my chief delight was the Swifts. 

 All day and especially towards evening they circled 

 in swarms over the City, screaming like ghosts : no 

 one seemed to persecute them or take any notice of 

 them. One thing which struck me as strange when we 

 were staying by the sea at Rapallo was the complete 

 absence of Gulls and sea-birds of any sort. The hills 

 and wooded villages running down to the cliffs were 

 full of birds, but sea-gulls there were none though the 

 coast was rocky and wild, and I sadly missed them." 



A pleasant comment on all three com- 

 munications is supplied by the news that 

 on June 12th the Italian Legislature 

 passed a new law to remedy some of the 

 evils frequently deplored by English 

 visitors. It forbids altogether the use of 

 the vertical nets so destructive on the 

 mountain passes, prohibits snares, and 

 imposes several limitations and restric- 

 tions in the use of the roccoli and similar 

 traps. It is to be hoped, as the Times 

 remarks, that the law will be gradually 

 widened and strengthened, and the 

 memory of St. Francis thereby honoured 

 in his country. 



