Bird Notes and News 



says the Editor of the paper. But how, if 

 offenders, when caught, are taught to think 

 a Hve Bittern worth half-a-crown, wliile they 

 know that a Bittern dead and stuffed has a 

 considerably higher vakie ? 



Professor Arthur^Thomson said some wise 

 things about birds in his dehghtful lecture 

 at King's College (February 20th, 1918) on 

 " Man and the Web of Life " ; and among 

 them was the comment that, while the 

 extension of arable land has had a dismal 

 effect on British fauna, wild creatures like 

 the Bittern and the Badger are national 

 treasures not to be sacrificed to ignorance 

 or greed. As an illustration of man's 

 unhappy destruction of bird -life, he instanced 

 the plume-hunter who by raiding the Herons 

 and Egrets have robbed half the world of 

 a bird of the highest utility in the rice-fields 

 of China and India, and elsewhere. The 

 list of birds which did any serious injury, 

 he remarked, is a very short one ; while 

 the vast majority are beneficial to man, 

 besides being a joy for ever to the sight. 

 In considering the increase, decrease, or 

 elimination of forms of Life, Professor 

 Thomson pointed out, it is not the first or 

 the second consequence that counts, but the 

 final consequence. That is a truth which 

 needs laying to heart by all our food-produc- 

 ing and food-controUing bodies, still more 

 by the chatterers in newspaper-correspon- 

 dence-columns, who, suffering from what 

 the Daily Mirror calls " suggestionitis, " 

 blindly propose to sweep insect-eating birds 

 into the stew-pot and to commandeer 

 lapwings' eggs for " food " supply. 



few words must be said of Flight Sub-Lieut. 

 Oliver Bernard Ellis, R.N., presumed killed 

 after a fight with enemy aeroplanes over 

 the German lines. In 1916, at the age of 

 seventeen, he went from Bootham School 

 into the Naval Air Service ; but he has left 

 behind him several volumes of a noteworthy 

 ornithological diary which leave -little 

 doubt as to the place he might have taken 

 among naturahsts. 



* * ♦ 



Among the many interesting and useful 

 speeches at the Society's Annual Meeting, 

 perhaps the happiest hit was made by the 

 High Commissioner for Canada, Sir George 

 Perley, in his comparison of the wireworm 

 and other land-pests to the U-boats ^ and 

 the birds — the greatest masters of aviation 

 — to the aircraft which by attacking them 

 defend our food-ships. Particularly happy 

 is it when contrasted with Air. Prothero's 

 singularly unfortunate likening of the House- 

 Sparrow to the submarine : either the 

 Board of Agriculture has a wild and weird 

 conception of the sparrow (as might some- 

 times be inferred) or else its President thinks 

 that the U-boats spend a third of their time 

 in protecting the British food-supply, as is 

 admittedly done even by the House-Sparrow 

 in the nesting season. 



* * * 



As this number of Bird Notes and News 

 goes to press there is hope that the Board 

 of Agriculture is at long last intending to 

 issue some warning relative to the destruc- 

 tion of insect-eating birds, so disastrously 

 stimulated by its attitude last year. 



Professor Hickson's lecture at University 

 College (London), on March 18th, was no 

 less illuminating. Dealing with " Birds and 

 Insects in relation to Crops," he remarked 

 that, calling to mind the damage done to 

 food-crops by insect pests during the summer 

 of 1917, it was probably no exaggeration 

 to say that insects destroyed more of our 

 home-grown food than the U-boats of the 

 enemy destroyed of food from abroad. 



Of the younger nature-students whose 

 lives have been given for their country, a 



It would seem that some comment in 

 these " Notes " on the cutting of woods was 

 regarded as unfair to owners of woodland, 

 whose trees were commandeered by Govern- 

 ment for the national needs, and who sold 

 them below their actual value and sadly to 

 the detriment of their estates. Such sacrifices 

 are compelled by war, especially in a country 

 which had made no effort in pre-war days to 

 provide its own timber supphes. A suggestive 

 statement of the position- past, present, and 

 future — is contained in the report of the 

 Forestry Sub-Committee of the Reconstruc- 

 tion Committee issued this year. 



