Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 :: :: FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS :: :: 



Vol. VIII.] 



SUMMER, 1918. 



[No. 2. 



Food Crops and the Protection of Birds. 



The following letter appeared in April 

 in the Times, Daily Telegraph, and many 

 other newspapers, and has been widely 

 circulated among Agricultural Associations, 

 War Agricultural Committees, Educational 

 bodies, members of County Councils, and 

 others : 



" The serious diminution in the numbers 

 of our resident insect-eating birds, which 

 resulted from the severe winter of 1916-17, 

 and also from the widespread destruction 

 of birds and eggs in the summer of 1917, 

 is a cause for grave anxiety at the present 

 time. 



" Plagues of msect-life of various kinds 

 were reported in the summer and autumn 

 from many districts, and but for the services 

 of summer migrants would have proved 

 alarmingly destructive to com, grass, and 

 green crops and to fruit. This year a 

 similar and greater danger faces us. Under 

 the most favourable conditions it must be 

 some years before many of our small birds 

 regain their normal status. The continual 

 ploughing up of old grassland multiplies 

 insect-pests ; the increased crops afford 

 them increased food and thus stimulate 

 the hatching out of countless swarms. 



" Owing to these circumstances the pro- 

 tection and preservation of insect-eating 

 birds, and of those birds which destroy small 

 vermin, is a matter of urgent necessity. 

 If the country is to have a sufficiency of 

 food crops, those crops must not merely 

 be planted and tended ; they must be 

 guarded as far as possible from the per- 

 petual menace of ravage and devastation by 

 insects. Hand labour is wholly inadequate 

 to the task, even if it were abundantly to 

 be had. 



" We therefore strongly urge that, in the 

 interests of national food-suppUes, this 

 matter be taken up promptly by Agricultural 



bodies, by Gardening and Allotment associa- 

 tions, and by elementary and secondary 

 schools, with a \'iew to checking the destruc- 

 tion of useful birds and their nests and 

 eggs, and the preservation of insect-eating 

 species, both resident and migratory. 



" Difference of opinion exists as to the 

 economic status of a few species ; but all 

 who have studied economic ornithology 

 and entomology are agreed : (1) that the 

 great majority of wild birds are beneficial 

 to man ; (2) that the insect-eating and 

 vermin-eating species in particular are invalu- 

 able to him in field and gardens ; (3) that 

 children should not be permitted to take 

 part in the destruction of birds and eggs 

 even of species deemed injurious, since 

 useful ones inevitably suffer also. 



" Bedford ; G. L. Courthope, Major, M.P. ; 

 Arthur Dendy, F.R.S., Professor of Zoology 

 in the University of London ; F. W. G.\:mble, 

 D.Sc, F.R.S., Professor of Zoology-, Uni- 

 versity of Birmingham ; J. Stant.ey 

 Gardiner, F.R.S., F.L.S., Professor of 

 Zoology, University of Cambridge ; 8. F. 

 Harmer, F.R.S. , Keeper of Zoology, British 

 Museum (Natural History) ; W. A. Herdman, 

 D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Zoology, 

 University of Liverpool ; Sydney F. Hickson, 

 D.Sc, F.R.S., Professor of Zoology, Victoria 

 LTni versify of Manchester ; H. H. John.ston, 

 G.C.M.G.;: D.Sc. ; E. G. B. Meade-W.axdo, 

 F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. ; P. Chalmers :Mitchell, 

 F.R.S., Secretary, Zoological Society of 

 London ; Robert Newstead, M.Sc, F.R.S., 

 Professor of Entomology, University of 

 Liverpool ; W. R. Ogilvie-Grant, F.Z.S., 

 M.B.O.U., Keeper of Ornithology, British 

 Museum ; Montagu Sharpe, D.L., Chair- 

 man of Coimcil, Royal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds ; J. Arthur Thomson, 

 LL.D., Regius Professor of Natural History 

 in the University of Aberdeen." 



