94 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



argument, and proves nothing at all. Instead of 

 going to the show, let the bird-student go to the 

 dealer's shop, where, in filthy little cages, uncleaned 

 for 48 hours, with foul water and little seed, 

 Linnets and Larks gasp out their lives. " Four 

 for lOd." " If they die we can't help it," as the 

 Clerkenwell dealer explained in his defence. There 

 are hundreds more to be had ; and it is perfectly 

 easy to " accommodate" them until they can be 

 sworn to as not " recently taken." " British birds," 

 said the secretary of a Cage-Bird Society to the 

 Sheffield Independent's representative, " live ' ten 

 times as long ' in this happy captivity as when free, 

 are doctored when ill, have food all the year round, 

 and are sheltered from the climate." In fact, the 

 Cage-Bird Societies have discovered that the Maker 

 of all things committed a great mistake in creating 

 birds to fly in the open firmanent of heaven ; and 

 bird-catchers and dealers are enthusiastically doing 

 their best to remedy His blunder. ' ' The bird- 

 catcher," writes another member of the faculty, 

 " does not for one moment contemiDlate cruelty — 

 as in all cases where wild birds or animals are cap- 

 tured, some cruel device has to be employed." A 



hundred birds may die of the cruelty or of terror 

 or suffocation, and a hundred others find themselves 

 on a Shoreditch street barrow, or in a Clerkenwell 

 shop ; but if one takes a prize at a show or in a 

 public-house " competition," is not the new 

 humanity justified of her methods ? 



ENHANCING THE DISPLAY. 



Members of the R.S.P.B., and other bird-lovers, 

 might well help to influence public opinion by 

 refusing to buy from poulterers who decorate their 

 places with the bodies of birds that are of no use 

 as food, and from florists who keep live birds in 

 their shop windows. The intention being, of course, 

 to attract the public, the public must show that 

 they are repelled. For example, an Hon. Local 

 Secretary of the Society recently wrote to some 

 well-known Stores to protest against the display 

 of a Heron in the jjoultry department. The reply 

 was that ' ' as there were a number of Herons on the 

 market for sale, the manager thought it would 

 somewhat enhance his display of birds that day." 

 Gulls and Kingfishers are also sometimes used to 

 " enhance the display." 



ucT ucT Books Received. ucr usr 



"Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador." By 

 Lieut. -Colonel William Wood, F.R.S.C. (Commission 

 of Conservation, Canada.) The striking paper pre- 

 sented by Colonel Wood to the second annual 

 meeting of the Commission of Conservation, Quebec, 

 is an important contribution to the growing demand 

 for animal sanctuaries in every land. Concerning 

 Canada in the first place, it is of direct importance 

 also to Great Britain, seeing that Labrador lies 

 directly half-way between Great Britain and central 

 Canada, and is 1,000 miles nearer London than 

 New York is — a wilderness park of rock and plateau, 

 lake, and river and forest, with an area of eleven 

 Englands. Colonel Wood demonstrates the eminent 

 suitability of this vast land for sanctuaries, and the 

 necessity for immediate action. Here, as elsewhere, 



' ' Unless we make these sanctuaries soon, we shall 

 be infamous for ever, as the one generation which 

 defrauded posterity of all the preservable wild 

 life that Nature took a million years to evolve 

 into its present beautiful perfection." 



Till our own day Nature could preserve her own 

 secret and sacred places, but in the twentieth 

 century — 



' ' There is no place left where men cannot go 

 with overwhelming force? at his command. He can 

 strangle to death all the nobler wild-life in the world 

 to-day. To-morrow he certainly will have done 

 so, unless he exercises due foresight and self-control 

 in the meantime. There is not the slightest doubt 

 that birds and mammals are now being killed off 

 much faster than they can breed." 



Wanton destruction, commercial destruction, 

 scientific destruction : Nature is faced with all these 

 forms — all greedy and reckless alike — -in every 

 part of the world, from the English wood and moor 

 to the primeval rocks of Labrador and the jimgle 

 of New Guinea. The practical details and sugges- 

 tions given by Colonel Wood, and his comments 

 on the destruction of mammalian life must be 

 studied in the pamphlet itself ; but the bearing 

 of the subject upon Bird Protection cannot be over- 

 looked. The Labrador Duck has become extinct 

 already, the Eskimo Cm-lew is decreasing to danger 

 point, and the Yellowlegs is following. Not long 

 ago all the brooding Eiders on one islet were killed 

 by hunters from one vessel ; in 1907 a party from 

 an American millionaire's yacht landed on another 



