Birds as Crop Protectors 
tect all birds during the breeding season, 
a period throughout which the young of 
even such a harmful species as the Housz 
SPARROW is insectivorous. It must surely 
be the height of folly to kill birds at 
the very time when they are doing good, 
though it is arguable that it should be legal 
to kill a bird which is caught in the act of 
doing harm. No insect eater should be the 
object of a crusade merely because for a week 
or two he takes toll of the fruit. It is not 
just, and, more than that, it is bad policy. 
The attitude of him who would kill a bird for 
taking sixpennyworth of fruit after saving 
pounds’ worth of produce from the insects 
is obviously ridiculous (Sheffield Datly Tele- 
graph, 3.vii.18). 
The schoolboy who translated the old 
adage Medio tutissimus ibis by In the midst of 
them was the Ibis, jolly safe/ was certainly 
not scholarly, but his translation would be 
apt were it not for the avariciousness of the 
collector of rare British birds; to my mind 
our Wild Birds Protection Acts carry out its 
sound principle both from the bird-lover’s 
a 
