BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



93 



claim to be the heaviest loser by the slaughter, as 

 her migratory birds do not for the most part pass 

 through Italy. She cannot therefore interfere on 

 economic grounds against the decimation of insect- 

 eating birds. And, in the second place, she cannot 

 urge her own example in the way of bird-preservation. 

 Though Britain may gradually be washing her 

 hands, they are very far from clean at present. 

 British people have no old-established custom of net- 

 ting and eating small birds. We thank heaven that 

 we are not as the Italians in these things ; our 

 agricultural labourers, even in their hungriest days, 

 do not seem to have deliberately set to work to 

 devovu" the linnets and robins and thrushes and 

 bvmtings of the countryside. But the non-hungry 

 classes cannot now be satisfied without a sacrifice 

 of Skylarks to the great god Epicurus ; and Quails 

 must be netted on the spring migration to be eaten 

 in the close season. It would seem, also, that bird- 

 eaters on the continent benefit by oiu- complaisant 

 view of the bird-catcher. A short time ago a 

 correspondent forwarded to the R.S.P.B. a poul- 

 terer's advertisement from a provincial paper, 

 for Thrushes, Blackbirds, and other small birds 

 " in any nimiber." Enquiry as to whether these 

 were destined for the provincial pot-au-feu, brought 

 this reply : — 



" As to the small birds we advertise for, we send 

 them to a Firm in London. What they do with 

 them we cannot say ; but we are under the impres- 

 sion that they go to France for eating purposes." 



CATCHING AND CAGING. 



The vast naajority of the birds netted in England 

 are taken, not for food, but for caging, or rather 

 they are taken in order that such as survive may be 

 sold into captivity. Whether this is better or 

 worse than the slaughter for food, those interested 

 in the matter must decide for themselves. There 

 is at any rate no excuse (however poor a one) of 

 poverty to be urged for caging wild birds ; and it 

 is equally disastrous in destroying song-birds. A 

 case was heard at Sheffield in October which illus- 

 trates the extent of the trade and the difficulty in 

 getting the law enforced. A dealer was summoned 

 for having in his possession 12 Linnets and 30 Larks, 

 recently taken. The defence was that, wild and 

 fluttering though they were, the birds had been 

 bought from a Rotherham dealer, who said they 

 had been in his possession fourteen days or three 

 weeks, and that he obtaiiied them from a man 

 named Sly, a Lincolnshire market-gardener, whose 



"market-gardening" includes premises in which 

 to " accommodate " 6,000 wild birds. The magis- 

 trates dismissed the case on the ground that the 

 birds were not " recently taken," because birds 

 kept in captivity more than fourteen days had been 

 held to be not " recently taken." " Apparently," 

 comments Truth, " they have not yet learned that 

 ' what the soldier said isn't evidence,' or they are 

 so loath to interfere with this cruel industry that 

 they jump at any excuse to enable an offender to 

 escape the law." 



"RECENTLY TAKEN." 



The decision quoted that "recently" means 

 in the Act a period of not more than fourteen days 

 was, it is true, given in a court of law ; and it is one 

 of the most extraordinary notions to which the 

 name of legal decision has ever been given. It 

 appears to be based on the fact that, although close- 

 time begins on March 1st, the sale or possession of 

 wild birds under the Act of 1880 does not become 

 illegal until March 15th. Fourteen days' grace 

 were given to dealers to clear out their old stock, 

 after which time the trade in newly-taken wild birds 

 was to be illegal. Obviously this was intended to 

 prohibit entirely the possession of the season's wild 

 ))irds, and to render all catching of, and trading in, 

 wild birds illegal throughout the close-time. In the 

 case of birds protected all the year, it should as 

 obviously ensiu^e that the possession or sale of a 

 bird of that year is illegal. To turn the Act round 

 and say that at the end of every fortnight through, 

 out the close-time of any bird, catcher and dealer 

 may sell the birds caught in the preceding fortnight, 

 is absolutely farcical. The framers of the Act decided, 

 it is true, to give the dealer a fortnight's gra«e. 

 Suppose they had decided to give him only three 

 days. Would this have proved that a bird kept 

 in a cage foiu: days is not " recently taken ? " 



THE ETHICS OF CAGING. 



A second Sheffield c£use resulted in the fining of 

 two men for taking Linnets and for cruelty to the 

 birds, with the forfeiture of their bird-catching 

 outfit. The two prosecutions have led to a long 

 correspondence in local newspapers on the ethics 

 of caging. The inain line of the argvunent in defence 

 is that the birds are happier and live longer in 

 captivity, and that the condition of those seen 

 at a show proves the excellence of the conditions 

 mider which the thousands upon thousands of birds 

 caught live and die. It is, of course, all a hopeless 



