30 



Bird Notes and News 



others have worked with passionate zeal 

 to have these things brought to light and 

 put an end to. It is believed that of late 

 they have improved to some extent, and 

 that there is real intention on the part of the 

 French authorities to have the law respected 

 and the birds saved. But the consequences 

 of the past are with us, and will be with us 

 for many years to come. 



The question is : Will the lesson be 

 learned? Will Great Britain do her part 

 to stay the destruction of other birds of 

 other lands where the plume-hunter is 

 working in league with the insect pests? 

 Will her agriculturists pause to consider 

 that, as the Swallow is to the midge, so are 

 other species of field and garden birds to the 

 wire-worm, the caterpillar, the greenfly, the 

 weevil? 



BIRD-PROTECTION IN THE 

 UNITED STATES. 



At the annual meeting of the British 

 Science Guild, at the Mansion House, on 

 May 22nd, Sir Boverton Redwood quoted 

 statistics as to the vast loss caused in the 

 United States by the destruction of birds. 

 It was estimated that the birds of Nebraska 

 ate one hundred and seventy cartloads of 

 insects a day, that those of Massachusetts 

 destroyed twenty-one thousand bushel daily, 

 that a single species of hawk saved the 

 farmers of the Western States 175,000 

 dollars a year by destroying grasshoppers 

 and field-mice. Yet, he added, millions 

 of people engaged in destroying the birds 

 that ate destructive and dise»ase-spreading 

 insects ; and the moral of these facts applied 

 also to England. 



In many respects America is in advance 

 of Great Britain, having devoted serious and 

 careful study to the economic question. A 



Swanley correspondent writes to the 

 K.S.P.B. : — 



" I enclose a cutting of an American 

 florists' paper (The Florists' Exchange, 

 April 25th, 1914), which may be of interest 

 as showing how much more they seem to 

 realise the value of bird-life than does the 

 average English gardener. We are continu- 

 ally coming across paragraphs in our own 

 papers abusing and blaming the birds for 

 every harm that befalls a crop, and a certain 

 paper recently advised that it was the duty 

 of every farmer to destroy as many Black- 

 birds, Thrushes, etc., as he possibly could. 

 The U.S. have beaten us in their success 

 with the Plumage Bill, and they will 

 probably be the first to obtain an efficient 

 law for the protection of all useful birds." 



The Exchange reports a lecture before the 

 Tuxedo Horticultural Society, in which the 

 lecturer alludes to "the fact that no suc- 

 cessful agriculture or horticulture would be 

 possible without the help of birds," whereas 

 it was estimated that the loss to the country 

 through harmful insects was over seven 

 hundred million dollars a year. "Would 

 it not well become our profession," asked 

 this horticulturist, "if we showed some 

 interest in the welfare of the birds? I 

 think the time is not far off when we shall 

 have to." 



THE FIRST BIRD MEMORIAL. 



Mr. Page Croft, M.P., speaking at the 

 Annual Meeting of the R.S.P.B. (March, 

 1914), referred to the first monument erected 

 in gratitude to birds — the tall column un 

 veiled last October in Salt Lake City com- 

 memorating a State's recognition of the 

 value of the Gull. In the days of the early 

 colonists of Utah, when the growing wheat- 

 crop represented the sustenance of the 

 pioneer people, dense swarms of grass- 

 hoppers clouded the air and attacked every 



