NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



It is a common pastime for boys to wantonly shoot 

 into the nests of breeding birds. I came upon several 

 boys one day with air-guns, and their targets were the 

 hanging nests of a colony of weaver birds. In order 

 to obtain some facts to write an article on the incident 

 to the local newspaper, I climbed the tree, and with a 

 long, hooked stick pulled the nests within reach. 

 Most of the nests contained fledgling birds, the 

 majority of which were dead or wounded. In one nest 

 the brooding mother bird had been shot through the 

 brain, and her body was, even in death, spread over 

 her eggs. Another parent bird was lying dead in the 

 midst of her children, who gaped wide their mouths 

 for caterpillars when I peered into the nest through a 

 hole made in the top. Not a single nest had escaped 

 those murderous boys. Dead and wounded baby 

 birds or smashed eggs there were in all of them, and 

 parent birds, frantic with grief and terror, flying to 

 and fro. 



Can anything equal this in cruelty ? Yes, the 

 wearing of the plumes of wild birds is worse, for, in 

 order to obtain those feathers, parent birds are brutally 

 done to death in the breeding season, resulting in 

 hundreds of thousands of baby birds dying miserably 

 of starvation. Why are the birds killed when they 

 are breeding ? Because at that season the feathers 

 have attained their maximum degree of beauty. 



Boys should be taught to study the ways and 

 habits of birds, armed with note-book and camera. 

 The student of birds rapidly learns to love them. 

 How can it be otherwise when we know that birds 



144 



