BIRD MOTES hmd MEWS. 



Jssucii (Quartcrlji bn the Itonal ^octetn for the protection of ^irba. 



Vol. III.— No. 1.] 



London : 3, Hanover Square, W. 



[MARCH 25, 1908. 



BIRD-WATCHERS. 



HE Watchers' Department of the 

 Royal Society for the Protection 

 of Birds represents perhaps the part 

 of the Society's work most interest- 

 ing to scientific ornithologists and to lovers of 

 wild Nature. The need for it is not brought 

 home conspicuously to the multitude, as is, 

 for example, the need for some restriction on 

 the plumage trade by the sight of the 

 furiously-feathered headgear which is forced 

 on public notice ; or as the call for some 

 effective check upon bird-catching is made 

 obvious by pathetic and dismal glimpses 

 of bird-life in dealers' shops. But if the 

 necessity is not thus made evident, neither 

 does the work suffer from that callousness 

 of outlook which custom and familiarity 

 breed in everyone. Some of the birds that 

 are special subjects of Watchers' protection 

 are little more than names to most persons, 

 and are rarely if ever seen by many of their 

 best friends. The majestic White-tailed 

 Eagle, with his lofty eyrie in the remote 

 Shetlands ; the bold Skua, dwelling among 

 the mountains and mists of the wildest 

 Highlands ; the Dotterel, driven by per- 

 secution to the moors and fells of Scotland 

 and Westmoreland ; the Bearded Tit, rarely 

 emerging from its none too safe retreat in 

 the Norfolk reed-beds ; the dainty little 

 Phalarope, nesting by a few lochs and loughs 

 far away from the abodes of men ; the sombre 

 Raven and the handsome Chough, haunting 

 some well-nigh inaccessible cliff-precipice ; 

 the Roseate Tern, jealously guarding its 

 eggs on a remote shingled shore : these and 

 others are, as living birds, no more intimately 

 known to the great majority of persons than 

 are the Trogons and Rupicolas, whose bodies 

 gleam among the sheaves of the plume- 



hunters' harvest in Houndsditch warehouses. 

 But, though unseen and unknown in their 

 wild dwelling-places, they appeal forcibly 

 to the imagination as fellow-denizens of our 

 island home ; for the romance of Nature has 

 always appealed to men of British race. 



Such being the case, it might be supposed 

 that our rarest birds would be safe in the 

 wilderness and the solitary places where 

 they have taken refuge from civilization ; 

 and that the only intruders on their peace 

 would be men who themselves know the 

 fascination of solitude, and whose eyes would 

 follow with the sympathy of kinship the 

 Buzzard circling above the forest, the Osprey 

 poised over the mountain tarn, or the Pere- 

 grine soaring among wind-lashed headlands. 

 Unfortunately, however, greed appeals more 

 strongly than romance to a considerable 

 number of persons, and wild life then becomes 

 merely something to harry and despoil for 

 personal gain. The Appeal just issued by 

 the Watchers' Committee of the R.S.P.B. 

 draws attention to the growth of that class 

 of collectors who, under the name of British 

 Ornithologists, are among the worst enemies 

 with which British Ornithology has to reckon 

 — " naturalists " who, in place of seeking 

 to preserve the grandest forms of British 

 bird life, ceaselessly endeavour to obtain 

 rare " British-taken " eggs and birds, though 

 at the price of the ultimate extinction of 

 species. The high prices paid by such col- 

 lectors for authenticated specimens are 

 obviously a direct incentive to egg-stealing 

 and bird-taking on the part of keeper and 

 shepherd and dalesman, in defiance of the 

 law for Bird Protection. As the Daily News 

 (February 17th, 1908) puts it, in commenting 

 on the Appeal, " the collector or his paid 



