Bird Notes and News 



27 



expenses will probably amount to from 

 £10 to £15 a year each. For cleaning 

 and other purposes the perches and 

 resting-places have to be taken down 

 and re-erected after and before each 

 migration, that is to say twice a year, 

 and the labour involved is considerable, 

 especially at Lighthouses which stand 

 out at sea. In addition to the two 

 Lighthouses completed, the Society now 

 propose to undertake, with the kind 

 permission of Trinity House, the Spurn 

 Head Lighthouse, Yorkshire, and the 

 South Bishop Lighthouse, off Pembroke- 

 shire. At both of these the destruction 

 of birds is frequently most grievous ; and 

 as the route of numbers of autumn as 

 well as of spring migrants passes them, 

 it is hoped to have the work completed 

 by the end of the present summer. Knot, 

 Dunlin, Woodcock, Whimbrel, Ring- 



Plover, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Sky- 

 lark, Song-Thrush, Redwing, and Starling 

 are noted among the autumn passers-by, 

 with records of 148 birds killed on one 

 night, seventy of a single species on 

 another. Dotterel (one of our disappear- 

 ing birds), Little Grebe, Storm-Petrel, 

 and Water-Rail are among the species 

 which have been picked up dead at Spurn. 

 Should funds permit, it is intended 

 subsequently to erect perches and resting- 

 places at Bardsey (Carnarvon), the Outer 

 Fern, and the Skerries Lighthouses. At 

 Bardsey in particular, the numbers of 

 birds which have perished have sometimes 

 been very great, on one occasion the fields 

 for a quarter of a mile round the Light- 

 house being strewn with dead birds. 

 The Society's scheme seeks to convert 

 these death-lures into refuges of safety 

 and rest on the way. 



The Plumage Importation Bill. 



A resolution calling for legislation in all 

 countries to prevent the destruction of 

 birds for millinery purposes, was carried at 

 the Women's International Congress, in 

 Rome, on May 9th, on the motion of Mrs. 

 Creighton. 



At the feather-sale in London on June 4th, 

 1914, there were offered 16,358 oz. of Egret 

 and Heron plumes — " osprey " — represent- 

 ing about 100,000 birds killed in the nesting 

 time. Among other lots were 8,531 Birds- 

 of -paradise, including 746 P. rubra ; 4,209 

 heads and crests of the Goura Pigeon, 1,017 

 Impeyan Pheasants of the Himalayas, 11,600 

 Japanese Jays, and 2,840 Kingfishers. 



Preaching the annual sermon on humanity 

 to animals, at St. John's (East) Church, 

 Perth, on March 29th, the Rev. Matthew 



Stewart, B.D., spoke on various forms of 

 inhumanity to birds, and especially of the 

 most widespread evil of all — the destruction 

 of hundreds of thousands of wild birds to 

 supply an article of trade useless for health, 

 comfort, or happiness, and the Avitness of an 

 appalling and iniquitous cruelty. Happily 

 the Plumage Bill could not be much longer 

 delayed. 



The story is still circulated of bird- 

 protection in Venezuela, and of " garceros " 

 where moulted plumes are laid by protected 

 egrets with the regularity of eggs by a barn- 

 door hen. No naturalist has ever endorsed this 

 story ; but one of the latest works on South 

 America, " A Naturalist in the Guianas," 

 by Mr. Eugene Andre, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., 

 speaks in the strongest terms of the slaughter 



