54 



Bird Notes and News 



reason at as early an age as possible. Those 

 who intend in after-life to become keepers 

 should be given a suitable training, in 

 which Nature-study in a wide sense should 

 hold a prominent place." 



As another competitor (G. E. Caraco) 

 puts it, the best educational method is 

 to teach children at school to take a 

 living interest in what they see and 

 find around them : — 



" If ornithology was a regular subject 

 taught in elementary schools, a vast amount 

 of good would be done. It is easier to train 

 young minds how they should go than to 

 eradicate firmly fixed ideas from the old." 



The Essays sent in from Elementary 

 Schools to the R.S.P.B. furnish good 

 testimony to this. All are on the side 

 of the Owls. One boy of eleven states 

 what he found in an Owl-pellet; a girl 

 of twelve writes : — 



" Everyone knows what useful birds 

 they are. Our keeper at one time used to 

 shoot Owls because he thought they would 

 destroy his young birds, but he does not 

 do so now." 



The game-preserver, however, requires 

 educating also. Mr. Blacker asks for a 

 law prohibiting all keepers from shooting 

 any birds of prey without the special 

 permission of their employers, " who 

 might be expected to have a fairly 

 intimate acquaintance with natural 

 history and the habits of birds." 

 Alas ! the expectation is a vain one, 

 and will continue vain until the boys 

 of Public and Secondary Schools in 

 general are imbued with a knowledge, 

 not only of birds' eggs, ornithological 

 terminology, taxidermy, and a "hobby," 

 but of practical field ornithology, and 



with " a living interest in what they see 

 and find around them." 



One point on which all the essayists 

 agree is that the arch-enemy of the 

 Bird-protector, and especially the Owl- 

 protector, is Ignorance : the more sound 

 knowledge can be spread abroad by 

 books, leaflets, lectures, personal inter- 

 course, and object-lessons, the better for 

 the birds. Happily Owl-pellets supply 

 one means of proof without resort to 

 killing the birds first and proving their 

 innocence afterwards, which has often to 

 be followed in other cases. " I think," 

 says the winner of the Second Prize 

 (C. P. Staples) :— 



" There is only one way to protect these 

 useful birds of prey, and that is to make 

 the farmers and gamekeepers understand 

 the folly of their ignorance, to prove to 

 them by the examination of pellets and 

 castings what the Owls really feed on." 



With regard to other birds of prey, 

 the Falcons and Hawks and Buzzards, 

 the Competition has not produced, as 

 yet, much in the way of information or 

 suggestion. It is singular that while 

 game-preserver and keeper fall in for 

 condemnation on every hand, but little 

 reference is made to the depredations 

 of the scientific collector, who sins not 

 for want of knowledge but by the help 

 of it. The employment of Watchers is 

 the main proposition. 



It would therefore appear that the 

 R.S.P.B., with its Essay Competitions, 

 its Bird-and-Tree scheme in the Schools, 

 its publications and its Watchers Com- 

 mittee, has anticipated most of the 

 methods advocated in these interesting 

 papers. 



