BIRD NOTES and NEWS 



Issued (Qimrirrlir on the Jlopal ^orictn for the protection of |5troa. 



Vol. III.— No. 2.] 



London : 3, Hanover Square, W. 



[JUNE 24, 1908. 



THE BIRDCATCHER AT WORK. 



|T the Annual Meeting of the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds 

 it was briefly announced that a 

 somewhat new departure had been 

 made in the work by the engagement of a 

 temporary agent or inspector to enquire 

 into the traffic in British birds carried on 

 by catchers and dealers. It is a natural 

 corollary of the work of the Watchers among 

 rare birds, and will, we believe, com- 

 mand public sympathy. By a coincidence, 

 two of the chief speakers had, before this 

 was mentioned, dwelt with special earnest- 

 ness on the unhappy condition of what Lord 

 Stamford aptly called " the democracy of 

 the bird-world." The beautiful aristocrats 

 of the bird-kingdom have had their Reign 

 of Terror at the hands of the plume trade, 

 and a strong force, headed by Lord Avebury, 

 is now fighting their battle. The little brown 

 democracy of our English lanes has enemies 

 of another kind, of whom the deadhest is 

 the man who goes out with net and bird-lime 

 and braced decoy to make thousands of 

 captives for the town bird-shop and the 

 street market. It was appropriate that the 

 voice of a Wilberforce should be raised against 

 the enslavement of free bird life. 



The Society's inspector set to work in 

 March, at the beginning of the statutory 

 close season. For a short time he travelled 

 by train, by cycle, or on foot, around various 

 outskirts of London. Here, as elsewhere, 

 he visited the Society's Hon. Secretaries ; 

 interviewed the police, obtaining from them 

 all the information they could give on the 

 subject, with statistics of local convictions 

 under the Acts ; took note of districts where 

 posters were, or were not, displayed ; gave 

 cautions to bird-dealers as to the illegality 



of possessing newly-caught birds in close 

 time ; and put in an occasional word at rail- 

 way stations, whence birds were likely to be 

 despatched. It may be remarked inci- 

 dentally that in many places the police were 

 found to be very uncertain of their duties 

 and powers in the matter : for this the diffi- 

 culties presented by the Acts themselves, 

 and too often the discouraging nature of 

 magisterial decisions, are more to blame 

 than the village constable himself, from whom 

 the Society's representative received most 

 ready co-operation when required. At the 

 same time it is patent that the lot of the 

 country policeman living in a small place 

 where bird-catching is an everyday occupation 

 of men he meets day by day, is not an en- 

 viable one. If he prosecute it is quite 

 uncertain that he can obtain a conviction ; 

 but it is certain that he will gain the enmity 

 of his neighbours. 



The first active encounter was in an Essex 

 village, where a couple of men were found 

 catching Chaffinches. The birds were re- 

 leased, and the men let off with a warning. 

 In a later case in the same county, on 

 Stratford marshes, a gang was broken up 

 who have been in the habit of supplying 

 quantities of birds to the East-end markets, 

 principally common species, such as Starlings 

 and Sparrows, sold at 2d. apiece for public- 

 house " Sunday shoots." The inspector 

 spent three mornings with these men, and 

 was thus able to take the police direct to the 

 spot and give full particulars of their doings 

 and their abode. The spot was one difficult 

 of access, between a watery slough and the 

 railway line, and the G.E.R. lent a constable 

 to aid the two plain-clothes policemen. As 

 a result, two men were brought before the 



