Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 :: FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS :: :; 



Vol. VIIL] 



SPRING, 1918. 



[No. 1. 



The Feathered Food-Controller. 



" The millions of the insect world are upon 

 us. . . . The Birds fight them for us." 



" The greatest crop-protectors are the 

 insectivorous birds." 



These are the words of Dr. Hornaday, of 

 New York, and Dr. Gordon Hewitt, of 

 Canada, to whom the Royal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds has awarded its Gold 

 Medal in gratitude for their patriotic efforts 

 in preserving the insect-eating migratory 

 birds of the New World. They are at least 

 equally true in Great Britain, whose condi- 

 tions were well known to Dr. Hewitt when 

 some years ago he urged the need for unbiassed 

 scientific enquiry into the food of birds. 

 Dr. Hewitt was then Professor of Economic 

 Biology at Manchester University, and there 

 is an old sa3dng that what Manchester thinks 

 to-day, England thinlis to-morrow. Unless 

 England can make up her mind to think 

 with Dr. Hewitt as to the preservation of 

 insectivorous birds, the gaunt figure of 

 famine will be so many steps nearer to the 

 people. It is the duty — it need hardly be 

 said, of every member of the R.S.P.B., 

 but of every thinking person, to speak 

 strongly and to act vigorously in this matter 

 NOW, if the nation's food-suppUes are not 

 to be handed over by folly and ignorance 

 to the caterpillar. 



It would be an admirable as well as a 

 graceful corollary to the Migratory Bird 

 Protection Treaty between Great Britain 

 (on behalf of Canada) and the United States, 

 if for this year at least every summer migrant 

 to this country — all of them insectivorous 

 — were to be fully protected ; and with them 

 every resident species belonging to any 

 family represented by the migrants. Thus 



might be secured to the country the food- 

 and health -preserving work of Warblers 

 and Swallows, Flycatchers and Chats, 

 Wagtails and Pipits, and other charming 

 birds. 



Last autumn the complaint of insect- 

 ridden crops came from every district. Let- 

 ter after letter received by the Society told 

 the tale of wireworm and grub, aphis 

 and cabbage butterfly. Comments on the 

 dearth of birds also came from every district. 

 Few Robins, very few Thrushes, few Tits, 

 no Long-tailed Tits, no Goldcrests, hardly 

 any Hedge-Sparrows, and so on. It may 

 be interesting to tabulate the plain facts 

 of cause and effect. 



1. Intensely cold winter. Birds, espe- 

 cially insect-eaters, decimated. 



2. Board of Agriculture frantically calls 

 upon all persons to kUl birds, by 

 means of " sparrow "-clubs, rook- 

 shooting, poison, etc. 



3. Great dearth of small birds. 



4. Ministry of Food frantically calls 



upon all persons to grow vegetable 

 food of all kinds. Thousands of 

 acres of land brought into cultivation. 



5. Plagues of insects. Vegetable crops 

 of every sort — roots, greens, cereals, 

 fruit, and grassland, devastated by 

 grubs. 



The question to-day is, Is tliis melancholy 

 succession of disasters to be repeated in 

 1918. The winter has happily not been a 

 full parallel to that of 1916-17, but it has 



