Utility and Ecgnomy of Birds 
I saw in a vision 
The worm in the wheat, 
And in the shops nothing 
For the people to eat: 
Nothing for sale in 
Stupidity Street. 
(Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: 
Annual Report, 1918.) A question, asked in 
the House of Commons, elicited the reply 
from the Home Secretary that the Metropoli- 
tan Police found no reason to think that, 
except in rare cases, SONG-BIRDS were being 
sold for food in contravention of the law; 
suitable action had been taken, and he 
sincerely trusted that the barbarous practice 
of killing SoNG-BIRDs for food would not take 
root in this country (Hansard, H. of C. vol. 
81, No. 32, Wed. 19.iv.16). 
In June 1916 there was published in a 
daily newspaper the portrait of “the first 
woman gamekeeper ”’ (Daily Mail, 1.vi.16); 
but as the War went on women took over 
more and more men’s work, and even “lady 
rabbit catchers’’ became quite fashionable; 
The absence of men led to much less shooting 
both of birds and of beasts, and not a few deer 
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