Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 :: FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS :: :: 



Vol VI. ] 



AUTUMN, 1915. 



[No. 7. 



The R.S.P.B. in War-time.— I. 



A year and more ago, when the horrors 

 of War descended upon Europe, it was 

 supposed by some persons that the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds was 

 one of those iustitutions which, however 

 excellent in time of peace, would not 

 weather the storm. The Society is an 

 institution of humanity and civilization, 

 and humanity and civilization were ceasing 

 to count. It is an outcome of the 

 refined and aesthetic emotions of man- 

 kind, like poetry and pictures, and life 

 had no longer a place for the aesthetic. 

 Birds must, as one correspondent puts 

 it, " take a back seat." They must get 

 along as best they could while man was 

 at death-grips with man. 



The Council of the Society decided 

 otherwise. Throughout the most terrible 

 twelve months of history, the work of 

 the Society has been pursued steadily, 

 quietly, unfalteringly. Preservation of 

 rare species, safeguarding of migrants 

 at the lighthouses, efforts to secure and 

 extend legal protection against the bird- 

 collector and the bird catcher, the educa- 

 tional campaign in the schools and out 

 of the schools, protests against the skin- 

 and-feather traffic, have one and all been 

 continued. To those responsible for the 

 work it has not seemed desirable to turn 

 a blind eye to the barbarous pole-trap 

 because men were receiving barbarous 

 treatment at German hands ; to tolerate 

 the " osprey " badge of callousness on 



a woman's head because she might be 

 patronising a concert for the Belgians. 

 It should encourage the teaching of 

 children about the birds of their country 

 when old Bird-and-Tree Cadets and other 

 bird-students in the fighting-line write 

 of the poignant joy of memory that has 

 come to them with the song of a Skylark 

 or a Blackbird. 



If the protection of bird- life were indeed 

 an aesthetic matter and nothing more, a 

 Society for the purpose might falter and 

 stand aside at a time of great national 

 stress. Yet even on this score it might 

 be urged that the aesthetic has not been 

 wholly neglected in the country generally. 

 The flower-garden has not entirely dis- 

 appeared, though its place might provide 

 addition to the food-stuffs of the people ; 

 the mower still keeps the grass of public 

 and private grounds close and trim, 

 although some might think that left to 

 grow it would have yielded a crop of hay ; 

 the gardener continues to potter about 

 the borders with his shears and the gravel 

 path with his broom. It is surely as 

 well worth while to preserve the birds 

 of the countryside, with their grace of 

 form and flight and their incomparable 

 gift of song, as to beautify our lawns and 

 plant out geraniums. The garden, it 

 may be said, might become a waste or 

 wilderness, and future labour be thereby 

 doubled. Still more is this an argument 

 for the Protection of Birds, especially 



