BIRDS 



taken to educate the populace into a knowledge of 

 the existence of the laws. 



Birds breed when the farmers' crops are young 

 and tender, and when not persecuted they build their 

 nests in the vicinity of the growing crops, knowing 

 full well there will be an abundance of fat caterpillars 

 on the cultivated lands for their needs. Many a 

 time I have sat, hidden in a bush, watching a colony 

 of weaver birds flying to and from the farmers' fields, 

 bringing one or more caterpillars every journey for 

 their hungry children. One pair of weaver birds 

 made sixty journeys in two hours. Assuming each 

 brought back one caterpillar every journey, the pair 

 of birds would have removed 120 caterpillars from the 

 farmers' fields in two hours. A full day's work would 

 account for 960 caterpillars. Usually two to five 

 small caterpillars are the result of each journey. The 

 average accounted for in a day by a pair of birds 

 would probably be 1,500. 



The colony under observation totalled 1 1 3 pairs 

 of birds, and these would collect at least 150,000 

 caterpillars a day. Yet it is a common practice through- 

 out South Africa to permit children, both white and 

 coloured, to rob birds' nests of eggs or young. Should 

 he not require either, the boy gratifies his destructive 

 instincts by pelting the nest with stones, or riddling 

 them with pellets from an air-gun, shot-gun, or cata- 

 pult. It is, indeed, high time this wanton and alarm- 

 ing slaughter of our feathered allies ceased. Boys are 

 not by nature cruel. Their many brutal and some- 

 times diabolically cruel acts perpetrated on defenceless 



45 



