Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 :: :: FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS :: 



Vol. VI.] SUMMER, 1914. [No. 2. 



Round the Lighthouse Lantern. 



Perhaps none of the many branches Lighthouse lantern ; it had long been 



of the work undertaken by the Royal deplored, but was supposed irremediable. 



Society for the Protection of Birds — The birds, it was said, flew at the 



not even the salvation of the solitary dazzling light like moths at a candle, 



Raven and fairy-like Roseate Tern from and dashing against the lantern were 



the collector, or the attempt to save the killed or stunned and fell into the sea 



aerial Linnet from the birdcatcher, or or into the Lighthouse gallery. A Dutch 



the awakening of sympathy and love naturalist (Mr. Thijsse), however, held 



for nature in schoolchildren — appeals to that only a small proportion were lost 



the general public so directly as does in this way, and that the majority 



the preservation of migratory birds at merely flew, dazed and weary, round 



the Lighthouse. The simple fact that and round the incomprehensible gleam 



the beacon which informs and guards until they dropped down exhausted. 



the seaman should lure little birds to During three years he tested plans for 



destruction, and that these birds should providing resting-places for the small 



be such as are on their own long, travellers round about the bewildering 



mysterious journey through the air, rays, and at the end of that time he 



steered only by the distant lights of was able to report that the loss of 



heaven — cannot fail to touch the imagin- bird-life at the great TerscheUing Light 



ation. The sea with its romance, the had been reduced from thousands in a 



Lighthouse with its stories of peril and night to something like a hundred in 



daring, are eloquent to all British folk ; the whole migration season. 



and the small flying thing that drops The Royal Society for the Protection 



suddenly, as from the clouds, on gorse- of Birds entered into correspondence 



bush or bare bough in April, with its with Mr. Thijsse, obtained from him 



twittering tale of summer to come, is all particulars of his invention, and 



dear for association's sake even to those sought an interview with the authorities 



who have no care or interest for bird- of Trinity House. Here they met with 



life in general. most courteous hearing and with per- 



Rather more than a year ago the mission to have the scheme tried at 



Society started, at the Annual Meeting one or two British Lighthouses, the 



in 1913, a special fund for the protection engineers of Trinity House to carry out 



of migrating birds. The history of the the work according to the Society's 



movement has been told in a previous plans and at the Society's expense. 



number of Bird Notes and News (March, St. Catherine's in the Isle of Wight, 



1913). A tremendous loss of bird-life and the Caskets off Alderney, were 



results from the fatal attraction of the selected for the experiment. The plan 



