Bird Notes and News 



93 



From Correspondents 



GOESE-BURNING 

 I AM glad to see in our Manx paper one writer 

 pointing out the cruelty there is in burning the 

 gorse bushes during May and nesting-time. 

 The gorse is one of the glories of Manxland, 

 and grows here much more luxuriantly than 

 in England, where the climate is colder ; 

 consequently there are more nests in the 

 bushes here than elsewhere. It would be well 

 if farmers were reminded to burn their gorse 

 at the back end of the year. There is, I 

 believe, a law against burning in the nesting- 

 time, but evidently it is unheeded. — ^A. U. 

 Greene. 



THE DERIVATION OF " GALLY-BIRD " 



In your Spring Number (p. 76) you invite some 

 reader of Bird Notes and News to suggest 

 the derivation of " Gally-bird " (or " galley- 

 bird "), a name applied to the Green Wood- 

 pecker in Kent and elsewhere. The Rev. 

 Charles Swainson, in his " Folk-lore and 

 Provincial Names of British Birds," says : 

 " Galley- bird — merry or laughing bird (from 

 A.S. gcd, merry)." If this is the derivation it is 

 easy to see how the name originally came to be 

 used for the Green Woodpecker, though it is 

 also used in connection with other species of the 

 family which, unlike the Green Woodpecker, 

 do not laugh. Thus in the work quoted, 

 " French galley-bird " is given as a Sussex name 

 for the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, and Mr. 

 N. F. Ticehurst in his " Birds of Kent " gives 

 " Magpie Galley-bird " and " Galley-Magpie " 

 as Kentish names for the Greater Spotted Wood- 

 pecker. The Anglo-Saxon " gal " is the root 

 from which our word " gala " (a revel or fete) 

 springs. — A. Holte Macpherson. 



NEST MADE OF CONFETTI 



Miss Firbank writes from Boscombe : " I 

 wish you could have seen a Chaffinch's nest 

 that one of the Cadets showed me. It was 

 built near the railway station, and a cat had 

 pulled it down. We thought at first it had 

 the usual lichen and moss on the outside, but 

 closer examination showed the lichen to be 

 white confetti, with jagged edges, and the moss 

 was the green bast used to tie up flowers, all 

 woven in and wrinkled up to resemble moss. 

 There had evidently been a wedding party at 

 the station ! " 



BIRD DESTRUCTION IN ITALY 



Mr. J. B. Watson, a Fellow of the 

 Society, writes : — 



Visitors to the Italian Lake district walking 

 on the foot-hills may often have noticed semi- 

 circular pergola-like arrangements of wooden 

 stakes about 10 feet high, upon which bushes 

 are trained to grow. Near by is a small building 

 with a scaffold-like erection beside it, both 

 being also camouflaged with creepers and 

 bushes. These harmless looking erections are 

 traps for taking wild birds, the house for the 

 birdcatcher's paraphernalia, and the platform 

 on which he conceals himself when on the 

 lookout. 



The traps are used in the autumn months 

 at a time when migrants are passing through 

 on their way South, to their winter quarters. 

 The stakes are covered with nets, limed twigs 

 are used, and the birds are attracted to the 

 traps by means of decoy birds confined in 

 cages. Enormous numbers of birds for eating 

 and other purposes are taken, including small 

 insectivorous song-birds. Redstarts, Warblers, 

 and the like. 



Perhaps the most distressing part of the 

 whole business is the treatment of these decoy 

 birds, mostly Chaffinches and Bramblings. 

 They are confined singly in tiny cages about 

 six inches square, which are hung up on the 

 walls of many houses in the towns and hamlets. 

 These birds present a pitiable appearance, 

 many of them having had their eyesight 

 destroyed presumably for the purpose of making 

 their call-note more penetrating. To many 

 people this revolting cruelty may seem hardly 

 credible. But the writer himself witnessed 

 it in the district of Gardone. 



As regards the wholesale destruction of 

 insectivorous birds, this would appear to be a 

 matter of serious economic importance for 

 others besides the Italians. 



Another Fellow of the Society, Miss 

 A. J. Pertz, calls attention to the 

 same subject : — 



I was staying in an old Italian hill-town 

 last May, and one evening I strolled outside 

 the gates into the fields, walking beside Indian 

 corn six feet high and olives and mulberry 



