BIRD NOTES mo MEWS. 



Jasueii ^uarterl^ b^ tire floral ^acitt^ for t\}z ^rotcrtion of ^iria. 



Vol. IV.— No. 3.] London : 23, Queen Anne's Gate, S.W. 



[SEPT. 29, 1910. 



MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE AND THE BIRDS. 



I HE great world of those who draw 

 weekly delight from the pages 

 of Punch have sustained a heavy 

 loss in the death, on August 

 3rd, 1910, of the distinguished cartoonist 

 and illustrator, Mr. Edward Linley 

 Sambourne. To the E-oyal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds it is a personal loss. 

 Both in public, in the exercise of his art, 

 and in private ]VIr. Sambourne was one of the 

 first to encourage and support the young 

 Society in its struggles against an evil 

 fashion. He joined it as a member in 1892, 

 and in doing so sketched beneath his signa- 

 ture a large egg ; this, he wrote, represented 

 the embryo Society, and from it, he hoped 

 a bird might be hatched which " should 

 extend her protecting pinions over all her 

 tribe." In Punch of May 14th in the same 

 year appeared his powerful cartoon, " A 

 Bird of Prey " — a modern harpy decked 

 in stolen plumage — with accompanying letter- 

 press referring to " the laudable endeavours 

 of the Society for the Protection of Birds " 

 in opposing " the Harpy Fashion." In 

 1899 a correspondence in the newspapers 

 between the Society and the trade, on the 

 subject of the " Osprey " plume, furnished 

 him with the subject of another scathing 

 cartoon, in which he depicted " The Fashion- 

 plate Lady and the Egrets," a fashionable 

 figure insolently parading her feathered 

 headgear, surrounded by supplicating and 

 dying birds. Both these cartoons are re- 

 produced, by express permission, on lantern- 

 slides owned by the Society. 



Homely British Birds also had, it need 



hardly be said, a kindly friend in Mr. Punch's 

 genial " Sammy." In one of his letters 

 to the Society, \vTitten from a home county, 

 he says : 



" This country house of my daughter's 

 is a Paradise for Birds, and there is a Robin 

 now in the room so tame that he has come 

 through two other rooms to get here." 



At the foot of the page is added one of his 

 characteristic little sketches, the Robin's 

 scarlet breast bemg indicated with the red 

 ink so often called in to ornament and 

 emphasize his correspondence. 



In another letter Mr. Sambourne A\-rote, 

 " Personallj^ I hold myself ready to assist you 

 in any way I can by my work " ; and on several 

 occasions it was the wish of the Committee 

 that the Society's Christmas card should be 

 designed by his fertile fancy, but un- 

 fortunately extra work and other causes 

 hindered the project. The frontispiece to 

 the present number of Bird Notes and News 

 must serve, therefore, with the cartoons 

 already referred to, as the R.S.P.B. souvenir 

 of a member of Mr. Punch's staff who, like 

 Mr. Punch himself, has ever befriended the 

 cause of the Birds. 



The portrait of Mr. Sambourne is reproduced by 

 special permission ; the bird-sketches are examples 

 of the pen-drawings that invariably decorated his 

 letters to the Society ; the autograph facsimile is a 

 part of the note already quoted. 



Mr. Samboiu"ne, who was born in London in 1845, 

 has been a regular contributor to Punch since 1867, 

 succeeding Sir John Tenniel as chief cartoonist in 

 1900. To his successor, Bird Protection owes the 

 cartoon "A modern St. Francis," reproduced ia 

 Bird Notes and News, Vol. III., Xo. 2. 



